How You Can Exercise, Train And Compete Safely While Fasting

Individuals who will be fasting as Ramadan is approaching and still want to train, exercise and compete safely and effectively have to read this.

This article is published by my ex-colleague, Abdul Rashid Aziz, from the Singapore Sports Council (or now known as the Singapore Sports Institute) as part of his Phd research. Rashid has published countless articles in many different journals. He is definitely considered an expert in this area. 

Rashid has previously helped me immensely while I was still training for triathlon and working as a full time Physiotherapist at SSC. He would interpret and explain my results after my V02 and lactate threshold testing and make recommendations on how to improve further. We travelled together as part of the support team for Team Singapore athletes at the 2006 Doha Asian Games (he as the Exercise Physiologist, and myself as Physiotherapist).

He has previously worked with our Team Singapore silat, badminton players, swimmers, footballers and many other athletes. Our Team Singapore athletes (who were fasting) leading up to the London 2012 Olympics followed his recommendations while training.

Here are the recommendations for optimal competitive exercise performance and effective training-induced adaptations when Ramadan fasting.