This is the story of how keeping an active lifestyle made me who I am today...

It all started in 2011 when I was in 8th grade and started playing Badminton in my middle school's Badminton club. I was really into the sport, and that's when I started getting into the entire Badminton world. I took classes, and developed proper form and strength for Badminton.

Then fast forward to when I entered 10th grade in 2013, I was introduced to the world of Lifting. When I started lifting, I was a twig weighing in at sub-110 lbs; I could barely bench 95 lbs, couldn't squat more than 100 lbs, and wasn't strong enough to deadlift. At the same time, I was playing Badminton and getting ready for the spring season. Although the strength required for lifting is not the same as for Badminton, I learned to vary the amounts of strength I output for each different sport. But eventually when senior year of high school came around, that's when I felt like I was drifting away from the world of Badminton and more towards the sub-world of Powerlifting. I noticed a significant difference between the time when I played in 10th grade versus 12th grade. My back was stiffer and straighter, not as flexible as so desired for Badminton.

After I felt like my strength and lack of Badminton practice has made me worse at Badminton, I lost interest in improving my reaction speed and rotations. I started to focus mainly on Powerlifting. Over the summer between the transition from senior year of high school to freshman year of college, I saw major improvement. I weighed in at 160 lbs, and was able to reach a max of 160 lbs on bench, 315 lbs on 90-degree squat, and 295 lbs deadlift.

When I attended college orientation, I realized that I should dedicate my time into one specific sport. At first, I tried out badminton to realize that my reaction time, endurance and flexibility all have significantly dropped. My guess is that it's because of strength training that has decreased my cardio and flexibility. The huge amount of weight change might have also been a factor as to why I noticed a huge drop in a lot of critical areas but a major improvement in strength and mass. So I went around and tried to find an alternative. The main sport that caught my eye was Dragon boating because I had other friends who are already in college and were in their school's Dragon boating team. Shoutout to my DB fam, you're like a second family! Anyways, the thing that changed me is the way people train for the sport. It is a water sport and they all use a paddle to paddle. The sport requires one to have high endurance, good form, and timing, all 3 things that I currently do not possess and am trying to work on it.

What I noticed about the 3 sports is that Badminton has led me into the active world, and Powerlifting has taught me how to gain strength and isolate certain parts of my muscles when I workout, and finally Dragonboating has taught me how to have endurance and deal with the pain gained when pushing my own limits. All 3 sports have shaped me in one or the other form, it is clear that during my college career at UC Riverside that I should improve my strength, endurance and at the same time gain mass to balance out everything.

And now, reiterating back to the first line, "This is the story of how keeping an active lifestyle made me who I am today..." I can say that my choice of starting an active lifestyle has not only made me a more well-rounded athlete, but has also given me a high metabolism.

*Though it may seem like my lifestyle consists only of working out, dragon boating, eating, schooling, and sleeping, there is more to my life than those 5 things. I am currently a Double E (Electrical Engineering) student who is balancing school, social life, working out, gaming and extracurriculars all at the same time. It is hard, but for those who are wondering how I do it, I have time management. Sometimes I sleep late, but other nights I sleep early, but still wake up whether I like it or not.*