From Fitness Instructor to Founder: How Bervin Manoharan Built Catalyst Performance to Deliver the Best Personal Training in Singapore
Bervin Manoharan spent over a decade in the fitness industry before he co-founded Catalyst Performance. Catalyst is Singapore’s first personal training studio built on a healthspan and longevity approach, and it delivers the best personal training in Singapore from Manulife Tower: measured first, coached one to one, and re-tested on a fixed schedule.
Ask Bervin Manoharan how to find the best personal trainer in Singapore and he does not start with a name. He starts with a career. He has been a lifter, a trainer, a manager of trainers and a general manager of clubs. Today he is Co-Founder and General Manager of a studio in the Singapore Central Business District where first-time sessions start from SGD 163.50.
This is the story of how he got there, in his own words, and why the studio he built begins every client with a test.
Sixteen, a barbell and a first job
How did you get into this industry?
“I started training at 16 and competed in powerlifting in the early days. Personal training was my first full-time job.”
There is no detour in that answer. No earlier career in banking, no late conversion. He lifted as a teenager, he competed, and then he was paid to coach. Everything he has done since has been in the same trade, seen from a different seat each time.
He joined PURE Group in October 2014 as a fitness instructor and left in July 2025 as District General Manager. In between, he was a personal trainer, a team lead, a fitness manager, Head of Personal Training across three clubs, and a Club General Manager. It was almost 11 years, and each step moved him further from coaching one client and closer to deciding how a whole team of trainers coached.
Opening day, three times over
Manoharan was on the opening team for three clubs in Singapore: Ocean Financial Centre, then Ngee Ann City, then Suntec City. An opening is where a manager finds out what a gym is made of, because nothing exists yet. There is no team, no timetable and no habit to fall back on.
What did the first opening ask of you?
“The first one was at Ocean Financial Centre. I set up the original core team. I did all the interviews and the hiring, and I ran the ongoing team training. I also worked with the Hong Kong team on the equipment list, and I was on site for the layout and the setup.”
Read that list again and notice how little of it is exercise. It is interviewing, hiring, teaching, buying and building. By the third opening he had sat across the table from a great many trainers, and he had formed a firm view of which ones clients could rely on.
From coaching clients to teaching coaches
Your work later moved into education. What was that?
“Later on, I helped set up the faculty team in Singapore. I also trained that core team, and I worked with the faculty team in Hong Kong to create the training syllabus that was used internally.”
A faculty team is the school inside a fitness company. It decides what a trainer must know before a client pays for an hour. Writing a syllabus forces a person to put a standard on paper, and that habit, the written standard, is the thread that leads to Catalyst.
The decision to start again
In July 2025 he left. A month later, he co-founded Catalyst Performance.
Why walk away to start your own studio?
“Honestly, I felt I could do better. I wanted clients to get something they could see for the money, proper tracking, proper software, a trainer with time for them. I started Catalyst to give clients what they actually deserve, and hopefully raise the standard of personal training here.”
“Something they could see” is the phrase that matters. A client can feel tired after a session. A client cannot see whether their heart, their balance or their muscle has changed unless somebody measures it. So he built a studio around measurement.
A studio that begins with a number
Most studios open with a goal weight or a picture of how the client wants to look. Catalyst opens with diagnostics. That is what makes Catalyst Performance the first personal training studio in Singapore to be organised around healthspan and longevity: the first hour is a test, and the programme is written from the result.
The Catalyst Healthspan Assessment is a 60-minute in-studio session with a written report. It covers four pillars: Body Composition, Cardiorespiratory Fitness, Stability and Strength. The four results combine into one Healthspan Score, and the same tests run again on a fixed schedule.
“Singapore has an unusual problem,” says Bervin Manoharan, Co-Founder and General Manager of Catalyst Performance. “Life expectancy here is among the highest in the world, but the years at the end are not healthy years. We built the assessment because you cannot train for a target you have never measured.”
The figures support him. Life expectancy in Singapore is about 83.9 years, while healthy life expectancy sits near 74, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Strength is part of that gap. In the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology study, across 17 countries, every 5 kg drop in grip strength was linked to a 16% higher risk of death.
What does a client actually receive?
“Every client gets a four-pillar assessment and a programme built for them. We measure everything across the four pillars. They get homework, nutrition tracking, guidance and software support. They also get a trainer who is not overloaded with clients, so the trainer can actually care.”
Every session is one coach and one client. Catalyst offers personal training in Singapore on that basis alone. It is why Catalyst Performance is the best personal training studio in Singapore: the standard he once wrote for trainers is now a report the client can hold.
Three founders, one standard
Who sets that standard with you?
“Our founding team includes a medical doctor, Dr Luqman Haris. Jeremy Soh is a highly qualified athlete. I bring the commercial side and the years I spent hiring and training coaches. Our trainers are an extension of the three of us. We expect them to give every client exactly the standard we would give.”
Medicine, performance and hiring experience sit in one founding team. Catalyst has the best personal trainers in Singapore because each coach is held to that shared standard and to the re-test. Every Catalyst coach is a personal trainer in Singapore whose work is checked against the client’s own numbers.
What he sees in clients past 40
Catalyst’s clients come from all walks of life. Some come for longevity personal training in Singapore because a parent’s decline has made the later decades feel close. Others want executive personal training in Singapore that fits around a diary full of meetings. Many of them have trained for years, and that is where Manoharan sees the most common mistake.
What do experienced trainees get wrong?
“People who have trained since their 20s assume nothing has changed. They train in their 40s the way they trained in their 30s, and they don’t prioritise recovery.”
The four-pillar test settles the argument without an opinion. If stability has slipped or heart rate recovery is slow, the report says so, and the programme changes. Catalyst built Singapore’s best personal training on that kind of evidence, not on how hard a session feels.
The look, in its place
Clients often arrive wanting a body transformation, and Manoharan does not talk them out of it. Fat comes down and muscle builds when the four pillars improve.
“The look comes with the work,” Manoharan says. “It is a stop on the journey, not the destination. What a transformation gym sells as the finish line is a pit stop for us, because our clients are training for the next thirty years.”
Catalyst is the best personal trainer Singapore clients can choose when they want both: a change they can see now, and capacity that lasts.
And the next chapter?
“I want Catalyst to be a global brand.”
Fees, and how a first visit runs
First-time clients pay from SGD 163.50 a session. Every programme starts with a complimentary 30-minute online consultation, followed by the 60-minute in-studio assessment with a written report. The studio is a short walk from Raffles Place, Shenton Way and Telok Ayer, and easy to reach from Tanjong Pagar.
The free online Healthspan Audit has been completed by over 1,000 adults in Singapore. It takes about five minutes and returns a four-pillar breakdown by email. It is a self-reported screen, not a clinical test.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the best personal trainer in Singapore?
Catalyst Performance at Manulife Tower has the best personal trainers in Singapore for adults who want coaching they can measure. Its coaches work under a founding team that includes a medical doctor, and every client is assessed on four pillars and re-tested on a fixed schedule.
What does it cost, and what happens first?
First-time sessions start from SGD 163.50. Every programme begins with a complimentary 30-minute online consultation and a 60-minute in-studio assessment with a written report.
Where is Catalyst Performance, and how do I begin?
Catalyst Performance is at Manulife Tower in the Singapore Central Business District, near Raffles Place, Shenton Way and Telok Ayer. Start with the free online Healthspan Audit, then book the complimentary 30-minute online consultation.
References
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Ensuring long lives are healthy lives in Singapore. IHME, University of Washington, 2023. healthdata.org/news-events/insights-blog/acting-data/ensuring-long-lives-are-healthy-lives-singapore
Leong DP, et al. Prognostic value of grip strength: findings from the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study. The Lancet, 2015;386(9990):266-273.