Actor and fitness buff JC de Vera understands the importance of working out; he finds time to go the gym despite his busy schedule because, he said, it helps him cope with stress due to work.
“I work out normally three to four times a week. I do a lot of exercises. I do sports, I play basketball, I box, and I run, so there’s a lot of cardio involved. There’s a lot of weightlifting for strength and a lot of agility and mobile workouts to increase flexibility,” he shared.
De Vera’s body may be used to the physical strain of working out but when he joined Under Armour’s Test of Will recently held at SM Megamall, he admitted to have had his will tested.
“Back at the gym, we already practiced the routine so my body was not surprised with the workout. But it’s different when everyone’s watching. You try to do more; you try to challenge yourself more. My will was really tested, I pushed my limits. I feel great that I finished the challenge,” related De Vera.
Test of Will is physical event organized by high-performance sportswear label Under Armour, wherein it promotes training and functional fitness to everyone—athletes and otherwise.
First launched in 2016, Test of Will has since been dubbed as Asia’s most advanced urban fitness challenge that welcomes everyone with the will to train and a drive for competition.
Participants perform four exercises with the goal to finish as many reps as possible within one minute per each exercise. This year, the test consisted of Over and Under (Hurdles), Deadball Squats, Kettlebell Farmer Walks, and Bear Crawls.
“Test of Will is designed to work both the upper and lower body. It’s a test of endurance, stability, strength, flexibility, and motion. The way that it’s structured, it only takes four minutes, so you don’t have to be really athletic to complete the challenge,” explained Yvonne Tey, marketing director of Under Armour Sports in Southeast Asia.
She added, “It’s not about whether you can do a lot of reps or just five of them. It’s about coming out of your comfort zone to try the challenges.”
This year’s challenge saw the introduction of 18-34, 35-44, and 45 years old and above age categories which levelled the playing field and gave participants more opportunity to be named the top male and top female in their age group. The highest scoring male and female participants throughout the two-day competition, regardless of age group, won a cash prize each.
Test of Will is exemplary of Under Armour’s “Will Finds a Way” mantra which positions sports, functional fitness, and a training lifestyle as platforms for breaking barriers, uniting, inspiring, and even changing the world through movement.
“There are people who may be intimidated by sports or the Under Armour brand. This is why we stage Test of Will so people can be motivated to begin their own fitness journey, continue it, or start targeting a new performance record,” said Mark Chan, president of Athletes Pro Group, Inc., the local distributor of Under Armour products in the Philippines.
The global Under Armour label was launched in the Philippines in March 2015 and currently has seven brand houses in Metro Manila including Cebu, 18 participating stores in SM malls, and a total of 151 wholesale partners nationwide.
