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The IPPT
 

DISCLAIMER - This blog is entirely not SC2 related, and is more of a personal kind of blog. If it's not your kind of thing to read about some random dude, then you can stop here
I originally posted this on my personal blog, but thought I'll just post it here too to let people who are really bored have some reading material


For the benefit of the non-Singaporeans reading this, the Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT) is an annual fitness test that all Singaporean males (after they have completed their mandatory 2 years in army service) have to clear (if not, they have to go for Remedial Training which is a 10 week bi-weekly course)

There are 5 stations in total -
Standing Broad Jump - Start with feet apart, stationary, and jump as far forward as you can.
Situps - Bent knee sit-ups, as many as possible in 1 minute
Chinups - Grab a bar and pull yourself up as many times as you can
Shuttle Run - 4 x 10metre sprints back and forth, testing agility. Complete as fast as possible.
2.4 KM Run - Run 2.4KM in the shortest time possible.

So today I went to attempt my IPPT. I had NOT prepared in any way whatsoever besides doing pullups maybe 2-3 times a week. I was just going to get a gauge of my standard so I know what/how to train.

Naturally, I was extremely nervous/scared/apprehensive from the start of the day.

4.15PM - Arrived at Maju Camp for my IPPT, but was told by the guard that they were only letting us in at 4.30PM. (The IPPT was scheduled to start at 5PM)

Went over to sit at some chairs outside of camp, and spent the next 15 minutes swatting mosquitoes which tried to suck my succulent legs and controlling my pounding heart.

4.28PM - The guard came out and told us that we could go in. They actually updated their 'entry' systems! They actually use handheld scanners to scan your ICs now! Nice, high tech. I wonder whose USMS that was. Sure win alot of money.

4.32PM - Reached the Fitness Corner, and had no idea where to go as it was my first time taking my IPPT there. Walked around aimlessly, looking at other people for guidance. Totally committing pluralistic ignorance.
(shamelessly showing off my Psych knowledge) (actually now that I've checked online sources it seems entirely different from what my Psych Textbook taught me wtf. fail textbook)

4.45PM - A PTI (Physical Training Instructor) finally opens up the InPro (in-processing) booth where we go and get our number tags.

5PM - I had already gotten my number tags and was sitting with the many others who were waiting around impatiently for the IPPT to commence. I could feel a tiny lump in my throat now.

Seriously the waiting is the worst part, it just makes you even more nervous and even more scared.

I remember reading this particular scene in one of the Hannibal Lector series (awesome stuff btw) where the psychotic Dr Lector had his prisoner chained up, and let him know that he was going to cut off his toes daily, one at a time, then his fingers, then his limbs, etc.
(Being extremely sadistic he also replenished the fluids and blood lost via some saline drip or something to keep the person alive)

In the book it was clear that it was not so much of the physical pain that was wearing the prisoner down, but more of the mental torture of knowing the extreme agony that was going to come each day. The wait was the worst part of it all, and could drive a person crazy.

Anyway, random digression aside, the wait was finally over when the PTI announced the start of the IPPT session.

After 5PM -
I had a clear strategy for the sequence of stations to attempt mapped out - I was going to start with the pull-ups, then the shuttle run, then standing broad jump (SBJ), then situps.
I wanted pullups first because it was the only upper body one, and won't affect the rest. Shuttle run was next because I wanted some adequate rest time after that (sprinting is tiring) and the 2.4KM run at the end. Situps tend to cause some kind of strain in your inner thighs (hard to explain why) so SBJ had to be first.


Chin-ups /Pull-ups

I stepped up boldly to be one of the first few to attempt the station. I was pretty confident of passing this, as during my practices I always managed 6. My aim was 8 today though. (6 is to pass, 8 for silver)

I watched some chubby guy in front of me struggle to do 2 and kept my chin up. (wow pun unintended) 'I'll beat him easily!'

Then it was my turn.

I stepped forward and put my electronic number tag into the tagholder, and stepped up to hang on the bar before starting.

Go! 1, 2...

Oh wtf, the bar has almost no grip. My fingers are slipping. Readjust.

3, 4, 5.

Why don't they invest in some kind of better grip bars! Omg don't slip and fall don't slip and fall.

6...

(Yes, I did it. I passed)

7...
One more. One more alan.

8!!

Bells went off in my head as I gracefully jumped down from the bar, and restrained the urge to do a celebratory dance at my first completed station of IPPT. I strode confidently away from the station, imagining envious eyes looking at me walk away (there probably weren't any in actual fact)


Shuttle Run
Never really had a problem with this station, besides the odd mishap in JC1 (just Ctrl+F 'shuttle run', it's from the very first post) , but it's one station which you can't practice on your own so I did feel abit nervous about it. Also, the JC1 incident left a lingering phobia in my mind.

As I was queuing up, I saw this slightly plump guy do some dramatic somersault when he tripped and fell mid-shuttle run and he rolled up and continued running to finish it up. Super drama. Like kungfu movie. (he failed anyway)

Then it was my turn. I strode up and put my tag into the holder again for the electronic reader to register it.
There's a way to kinda cheat for this, you just stand slightly further back (like one step away) and start running from there. There seems to be some sort of delay from when the timer starts and when you go through the gantry.

Anyway, on my first time forward, I sprinted too fast and neglected to slow down on the turn, and slid abit and the turn wasn't very fluid. Damn.

Made the mental note to slow down slightly on the turn back, and completed the other 2 turns smoothly.

Ran through the gantry - turned around and looked at the scoreboard thing - 10.00seconds. 5 points! (A)
lolololol. Even with the little skid at the start I still managed an A. Oh well.

Chest full of pride, I walked towards the next station.


Standing Broad Jump (SBJ)
Another station which you can't really practice on your own, but I've always been alright with it (and even set some kind of record when I leapt a bewildering 261cm in Sec2, no idea how I did that), managing a decent score.

Saw a few fat dudes (like really fat kind, those that take up 2 seats on the bus/MRT kind) attempt the SBJ in front of me who almost broke the machine when they landed.

HAHA ok I shan't be so bad. But it was really funny in a mean way. Like see them cannonball forward like 1 metre or something.

Then I saw this spectacled guy in front of me who did his jump and when he landed, his spectacles flew off, and I stifled a giggle. Hahahhaa super funny. How can his spectacles fly off? sucha noob.

So came my turn. I stepped up, looked forward, did my customary swinging of arms, and leapt forward with all my might.

F MY SPECTACLES FLEW OFF.

I quickly fumbled to grab my specs and put it on again and glanced at the score. Whew, at least it's a decent score, 239cm (4 points).

I wasn't satisfied so I tried again... AND MY SPECTACLES FLEW OFF AGAIN.

Why ah.

Anyway, I only managed a 239cm again, sigh. Oh well, 4 points is good enough. On to the last station (before the 2.4KM run!)


Sit ups
This is my pet event.
Back when I was in early secondary school years, I had some obsession for training and mastering situps for some reason, so I did them really regularly.

On my bed, I actually managed a whopping 120 in a minute. Yes, 120. That's 2 per second. It's because the bed is quite bouncy so you can bounce up very quickly.. but it isn't very easy still! Try it!

In Sec2 (seems to be my peak) I did 74 in a minute on the normal mat, which was my best ever. After that was probably 60ish.

(Eh sorry la, let me boast abit, I don't have much physical achievements to boast about LOL)

Anyway, the 5 points(A) requirement was 40 in a minute, which is quite easy in my opinion. I think most people without a huge tummy should be able to get it?
And I really think my training from secondary school has developed fast twitch muscles in my abs, so I can do this really well. But if you ask me to do like 100 situps maybe I can't (more reliant on slow twitch since it's endurance)

So I just raced my way to 30 within 20+ seconds, and rested for 10 seconds, then did another 10 to hit 40, and just got off the platform. I mean, why try harder, just get 5 points can already! Must conserve energy for 2.4KM run!

(Oh when I sat up to remove my tag from the reader, it registered as one more situp. Haha. So i got 41)

2.4KM run

The run was held at a nearby indoor multi-storey carpark (MSC). I have heard from friends that the indoor nature of the MSC made the run additionally difficult, as there is little ventilation and hence it can get hard to breathe. :S Oh well.

When I reached there there was already a decent sized crowd there, so before I could complete my series of stretching the PTI decided to begins his briefing so I had to cut it short. Not that it would really matter.

And just to foreshadow what you are going to read, I set a personal record in this run.

So anyway, the PTI told us about the route, run 6 rounds around the MSC, how the electronic system worked, yada yada. Ok, time to start the run.

We were dispatched in waves, and I was the 3rd wave. Ok no problem. On your marks.. jogging on the spot.. 3 , 2, 1 GO!

With my brilliant mathematics, I had already calculated this. To get a passing timing of 12:20, I need to run approx 2 minutes per round. As long as each round is under 2 minutes or around 2 minutes, I'm in good time.
Generally, I'll want my first 3 rounds to be under 2 minutes, since it's natural tendency to slow down from fatigue in the last 3 rounds, so they can be 2 minutes+.

Round 1
Got off to a quick start.
huff puff. I can do this. catch up with all the flabby people!

Passed a few flabby unfit looking people. Yes! I'm winning!

When I passed the line, I saw my timing for Round 1 - 1:45. I'm in good time! Well done!

Round 2
Ok this is getting tiring.
I'm starting to pant. I'm regulating my breathing heavily to match my footsteps.

Where is all the oxygen? My lungs are starting to catch fire. It's like I'm sucking in air but my lungs don't feel better. My steps become smaller. My pace gets slower.

Round 3
The fire in my lungs is raging.
I'm sucking in air as much as possible, but I didn't feel any better.

Normally, round 3-4 is where you are finally warmed up and you are just settling into the pace of running and shouldn't be that bad.

But this time, I never got to 'settle in' to the pace. It just got worse and worse as I continued the lap. My steps became much smaller, and people were passing me left and right.

Where is the oxygen? Gasp.

When I crossed the line, I saw the timing - 6:22. Shit.

Round 4
The burning fire in me was dancing around my lungs, and people in front of me were stopping to walk, and the peer pressure got to me and the mathematics of it all was clear-
If I took 6:22 to run the first 3 rounds, assuming I run at the same pace (I would probably slow down), I was going to complete it in 12:44. Which is a fail timing. Literally. There's no point continuing anymore.

And thus, for the first time in my life in 2 years, I started walking in a 2.4KM run .

Suddenly, the sagely advice of why you should never ever start walking in a 2.4KM hit me like a truck. Almost within 10 seconds of my commencement of walking, I developed a very painful stitch in my stomach

OUCHH. OMG.

Not only that, my legs began to feel crampy, and I kept trying to stretch while walking to shake the cramp off and get rid of the stitch.
I tried to jog abit at the end of this lap to the next.

Round 5
The stitch was full blown now. It was like there was an alien in my side, trying to claw it's way out. It was all but clear that there was no way I would be able to force myself to continue jogging the rest of the way 'just to train' with this pain in my side.

I did the known solution - stretching my side as much as possible while taking deep breaths to let the intake of oxygen cure the stitch.

But wait, guess what? Right, there's no oxygen.

So my pathetic walk continued, only jogging quickly forward when some fat dudes started to approach me from behind - my pride was too big to let some obese fellow who eats McDonalds for all 3 meals beat me.

Round 6
Pretty much the same, me struggling with my stitch, and only running forward to avoid the fat people behind me. Some flabby ones DID pass me, but I was already in the 'cbf zone'.

Completed the final round by jogging through the gantry, and lol-ed at my timing.

17:14

HAHA WTF.

I said at the start that I set a record this time round. Yup, that's the slowest I've ever ever ran in my life. But yea you can't consider it running when I walked half of it. But still, that is just hilariously bad.


The final results:



Sigh. Gotta go running now. Have to get used to the burning lungs feeling, and hopefully I can overcome the oxygen-deprived indoor carpark of Maju Camp! Really harder to breathe than usual! But maybe it's because I did not train at all lulz.


That's all folks.

Re: The IPPT
 

that IS SO FREAKING AWESOME! Lovely experience you had there.

Re: The IPPT
 

Wtf.. the IPPT sounds fun. Whats the shuttle run though, i thought it was a beep test? They way you described it it sounded like like a sprint

Re: The IPPT
 

Not fun if you have to be subject to 10 weeks of RT if you fail!

It's not a beep test. Ok the one that they have normally (non-electronized) is this 10 metre lane, and at the end of the lane there are 2 small wooden blocks.

So what you do is you run to them and grab one, run back and drop it at the start line, then run back to the 2nd wooden block and grab it, and run back through the start line.

Is that any clearer? Haha

Re: The IPPT
 

so fun well i am the sporty type of guy so like yeahh..

Re: The IPPT
 

Well, Lucky PES E Clerks like Me don't need to do IPPT! I'm a SAF Band Clerk btw. And to get a Corporal Rank from Lance Corporal you need to pass your IPPT.

Re: The IPPT
 

WTF you have to do 10 weeks of some stupid training camp now? Does it cost money?

Re: The IPPT
 

Lol no del, it's not 10 weeks of training camp. It's 10 weeks of bi-weekly trainings as I stated ( twice a week!), each session is about 2 hours? Not sure really, never went for it before.

@Aean - haha yea I'm generally sporty too but don't really exercise that regularly. That's why I can clear the static stations pretty easily but not something that requires stamina xD

@ultimatedeep - rawrr wanna downpes

Re: The IPPT
 

Well? Too bad. I know how you feel.

Re: The IPPT
 

You forgot to say how good you were while u were in green fatigues :P

Re: The IPPT
 

what on earth happened to your 2.4 and situps

Re: The IPPT
 

@Lennx - Haha I wasnt THAT fit, just a regular silver when I was in NS.

@derpy - Do note that I didn't train AT ALL for any of these (besides pullups). So yea 2.4 fail was expected.
And situps... everyone does that? Noone bothers to do more because 40 is A already. I could probably do 60 now if I wanted to but what for? Just waste all my energy and have less for 2.4 run later.

Re: The IPPT
 

For two years in the army I worked as a NS Affairs IPPT Clerk, so I know just about everything regarding the IPPT/RT/IPT system and what constitute valid reasons for exemption (though these can vary based on the Approving Officer). Ask me anything.

Ironically, I'm also PES E1L9 and except from IPPT itself.

Re: The IPPT
 

haha awesome sharing of ur experience, im sure alot of sgs can relate to this. in fact a buddy of mine proudly tells me how he goes for each ippt but knows he has no chance in passing. so when he gets to the sit up station he lays there forever then at the last moment does a slow mo sit up and shouts "1!!!!" triumphantly

wait Xeen you mean you actually did NS? And now ure leaving sg forever? what!

Re: The IPPT
 

But Probably most SG guys in this generation like me have this thought:

Oh, SG system is so screwed up, I want to freaking migrate and get off this God-Forsaken Rock after I ORD to stay away from what we called Gahmen Garangness.

Xeen? You were also a PES E Clerk like me?! When did you ORD???

Re: The IPPT
 

i can't imagine australians having to do this :P

Re: The IPPT
 

Hmmm, why don't we have this in Australia? If we tried to pass a law all the fat, obese people (aka, 95% of the country) would start a war to avoid it.

Re: The IPPT
 

Yes, my parents want to stay here so they want me able to come and go freely. I did my NS from 151208 to 141210.

Personally, however, I have no interest in the country and as soon as I have the means (ie: uni and then work), I'll go back to the US. Which is 2 months from now.

Re: The IPPT
 

You're just like many other New-Gen Singaporeans who feel that this country is abit on the screwed side, and then move out to a better place where stuff's better and way cheaper and more opportunities. Like EG if you move to like NA, you could probably even Learn how to SC2 Properly!

Re: The IPPT
 

im going in ns in 2months time in sept, did my napfa test last earlier dis yr... everything was 5pts except my run which i did it at 13min20sec, still fail by 50sec=(
2months more of army life for me

Re: The IPPT
 

heh, it's always the run that kills.

The gold standard inside is crazy, 9:44. The best in my life at my peak fitness was only 10:20

@xeen
Oh? Then what's the easiest, cheapest way you know to downpes? (Besides declaring gay, chopping off limbs or any other absurd solutions)
I'm not exactly THAT keen to downpes, since passing does give you monetary incentives ($100 for pass, $200 for silver, $400 for Gold), but I'm just interested to hear from the 'inside'

Re: The IPPT
 

Well, that's more of an MO kind of question, so I can't answer it much (NS Affairs doesn't handle that part). However, the easiest way to be temporarily excused is usually FFI-related. While you are only exempted from IPPT for one year if you have 6 months of continual MC or 9 months of total MC in your birthday period, sometimes people get exempted because they're awaiting specialist review (or marked FFI pending) and that period overlaps the end of their IPPT window. If you're pending specialist review on an issue for an extended period of time you can get temporarily downpes'd, but again, that's by authorization of the MO.

There are definitely people who end up FFI pending for bizarre amounts of time, or find ways to be unable to obtain FFI appointments, and thus have to be deferred or exempted repeatedly. Of course, it also depends on how charitable your HQ branch is on this issue.

Easiest, though, is likely some sort of mental diagnosis.

Personally, I downpes'd by having a collapsed lung held together with staples, but that might not be something you're up for doing.

Re: The IPPT
 

fortunately for you, if you have 8 weeks of rt, you have a chance of winning 2 weeks off of rt! it also means you'll be in a warrant company which gets loads of breaks! but on the downside, the chance of getting sent to sispec is very very high. unless, of course, if you get posted to Hendon. or Sembawang.

Re: The IPPT
 

I hate IPPTs. Like seriously.. Why do they waste the time to recall us for IPPT anyways!

Re: The IPPT
 

Partially to maintain national and unit fitness levels, partially to ensure that NS units are contactable and reporting.

You could always vote to overturn the NS Act, but Singaporeans love their government.

Re: The IPPT
 

crazerk.. lol an advice for u..

1: 1hr before ippt pop 2 panadols and 2 can of redbull..
2: since you got no problems with your others stations, i will just advice you on your run.
- dun bother bout the timing each round.
- keep a steady pace (since u just want to pass) for your first 3 -4 rounds. (if u wan timing, 2:15-2:30 for the first 3 rounds) reason being.. you are "fresh" u cannot pace well that's y you clocked 1:45 first round..
-5 and 6 round is where u go all out..
-tip to pace your self.. straight path is usually 100m+ so jog it off.. round corners, run.. (so it's like a short sprint)
- have targets to "reach" like a tree, a person, a building. it's to keep you mind off the track.. (think of how cute zerglings run)
3: if u got time to do training, do staggering runs.. 100m jog 50m sprint and repeat for as long as u can.. best of cos is more den 2.4m


hope these helps..

Source: i am a PTI =D