Words by Jumana

“Feeling the burn on those stairs? Here’s why: Weak core, tight hips, inactive glutes, poor footwear.Let’s conquer that back pain. Strengthen your core, engage those glutes, and climb with confidence. Your pain-free journey starts now!” Read a post on instagram @ablo.shan.fitness this April. Motivating to hit fitness and nutrition goals, one client at a time, this is the story of a unique force in the field, Abdulla Shan Ali (Ablo Shan).

Ask anyone who knows him and you’ll receive a similar answer. He is all about consistent motivation and inspiration: reveling in it, creating in it and definitely ensuring you find your own. Kaleo Media caught up with AbloShan during his busy schedule to chat about his specialty. 

“Starting from a very young age, whether it was football, badminton, basketball, cadets and even gymnastics, if there was a physical activity involved, I was in. Even if it were something small like dodgeball or going swimming even when I was in”. Ablo Shan recalled that he can’t remember a time when he didn’t keep himself busy by dabbling in physical pursuits.

 “ .. not that I considered it fitness back then. To me it was just fun but now looking back I realize I was addicted to staying active”.

He explained that back in the day when he first started going to the gym, it was mostly to maintain fitness. According to Ablo Shan, during that time, if you were able to do 50 pushups and 50 or so situps and run the 5 kilometers around Male’ City, you were considered pretty fit.

“A while back, fitness revolved around running and endurance. If someone spoke of fitness, there was usually running involved”

Ablo revealed that it was initially his elder brother’s passion for fitness that drew him in. “Everyone went to workout at the Muscle Load (Gym) at that time. My brother used to take me when he went jogging. There were also fitness and bodybuilding books everywhere”. Ablo Shan recalled that while personal trainers were rare back then, gyms typically explained general fitness to its users and that was it.

It was however when life took over and he became busy with his job that he realized how much of a craving staying active really was. “So I joined Male’ Fitness Gym. It would get busy around 6 or 7 pm and I observed the different people around me who were building muscle and lifting weights. That’s when it hit me that while activities like swimming and running helped with weight loss, changing body structure and composition required something more specific”.

The reintroduction into the fitness process for Ablo Shan caused him to take a closer look. It was when trainers helped him push his boundaries that he realized how many misconceptions he had about fitness based on things like age or ability. “I used to think that being far away from an active lifestyle for long or my youth meant I couldn’t do some of those sets and I was wrong. I needed someone to evaluate me and push me out of my comfort zone in order for me to grow. That’s how it all began and I knew I wanted to become a trainer.”

“When I first started working out and maintaining the discipline and consistency, I could sense the changes in my body and that was noticed by people like my coworkers for instance who then themselves, developed a motivation and inspiration to workout and join me”.

Very rarely would you see Ablo Shan missing a workout of his own. He tries to strictly maintain his routine no matter what. “Even if I finish work very late, I would grab my shoes and hit the gym or go for a jog. Even if it was for a short while. The key is to maintain the commitment”. Speaking of commitment, Ablo Shan then spent most of his free time learning as much as he could about training and fitness. “Even if I got like an hour break from work I would get through books and pdfs and watch videos and educate myself on the topic. I was tireless in this sense due the level of my interest in the topic”. Wanting to do an official course that allowed for a more hands-on approach rather than just online teaching, Ablo Shan chose to complete a course in FIT Malaysia hosted by Fit Zone and began the journey that led to his now infamous posts on social media in Dhivehi about fitness and nutrition and its inevitable link to his stunning client-base.

When asked how the typical client introductions go, he noted that although most people approach him with goals like “I want to lose weight, to a certain Kg”or “I am having severe pain in a certain regions”, it takes a well-trained eye to assess what approach the client’s body needs. “It takes a small while to actually know this, to identify this. For instance, someone might say that they are having body pain in certain areas and not actually realize that improving muscle flexibility and all that actually help them with that pain.”

“At the end of the day, what every single client needs is an accountability partner who will let them know that they can do it and also do the initial groundwork of the fitness and nutrition that will drive them towards their goals, and that is what I try to do for every single one of my clients”.

Ablo Shan noted that he always asks his clients to give him the initial month where the client is also able to learn about their specific body. “I specifically monitor and let them know the heart rate, cool down, muscle flexibility, rotation and all these factors and this is actually where the trainer-client trust and credibility is formed. This is where clients understand that they will be able to stick with me for years to come”.

With over a 100 clients under his belt to date, a passion that won’t wither and an innate focus on the field itself, the sky’s the limit for Ablo Shan.