A national serviceman has revealed that he attended 103 IPPT Preparatory Training (IPT) sessions between 2014 and 2015, and 116 between 2015 and 2016 out of curiousity.
The NS Corporal, 33-year-old software engineer Chris Shek, attended about 50 IPT sessions a year on average even though NSmen only need to attend 10 sessions each year and despite the fact that NSmen receive Service Pay for up to 20 IPT sessions only.
Shek, who completed his two-year full-time service sometime in 2006, only began by attending 10 sessions a year but he eventually hiked the number of sessions he attended from 2014 onwards to improve his health and fitness. He explained:
“I always had trouble passing my Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT) because of the Standing Broad Jump station [from the old IPPT format]. So when I first read about IPT in the newspapers when it was launched in October 2006, it looked like a better alternative that would help me prepare for IPPT, compared to taking up to 20 sessions of Remedial Training (RT).
“I used to only do the standard 10 IPT sessions annually after my Operationally Ready Date (ORD) in early-2006, but I booked more in 2014 because I wanted to exercise more regularly to lose more weight. I think it was around my 40th session – I remember looking at my *attendance slip and wondering if it was possible for the attendance to go up to three digits.”
Shek, who has already achieved a Silver for IPPT, is presently unsure whether he will be able to maintain his fitness goals since he will be phased into the reserve forces soon, making him ineligible to attend IPT sessions.
The serviceman who found that attending IPT allowed him to try “various training regimes which I wouldn’t have experienced on my own” shared:
“My health is still my priority – I want to continue training and losing weight. I am currently around 80kg, but my ideal weight is around 70kg. That’s why I will miss IPT, because I’m going to be phased into MINDEF Reserve (MR) soon. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to maintain my weight-loss goals without the regular IPT sessions. I will need to find other alternatives now.”