I first came across Warrior Fitness on Eventbrite in February 2017, when I saw the free Spartan community workout. I’ve heard of Spartan before but it wasn’t the thing that caught my interest. I checked out Warrior Fitness’s profile and it said, “Warrior Fitness is military-inspired training…” At that moment I just thought, “Oh cool, that’s what I’ve been looking for.” So I went ahead to sign up for the workout. The workout was fun, competitive and of course challenging for a newbie like me, who had never run, bear-crawled, and hopped over hurdles in repetitive manner. I was completely out of energy by the time the class ended, but I was also more convinced that this kind of training is my thing. I checked out Warrior Fitness’ website and learnt that they have 3 regular bootcamp sessions every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Obviously I would have to choose one that works best for my daily schedule. Now, here is the funny part, the training venues are not anywhere close to my home—I live in Nibong Tebal. For those who have never heard of it, it’s located at the very south part of Penang mainland. When the traffic is smooth like butter, it takes me about 40-45 minutes to reach the Youth Park. Heavy traffic could easily increase the time on road by half. Ultimately I want to minimize the total time-cost spent on attending the training so the only viable option left to me is 5:30am session, but that also means I have to wake up super early. Everyone thought it’s a crazy idea but then I’m capable of doing crazy things, and I really saw how attending such early bootcamp training could benefit me in various aspects. Long story short, I just started doing it since mid February—waking up at 4am every Mon, Wed and Fri, and left home at 4:40 just to attend the 5:30am sessions and then travel back to start my work day. 

Because of Warrior bootcamp, I’m forced to sleep earlier than my usual bedtime. Even though I hardly make it to an 8-hour sleep, surprisingly, I haven’t struggled to get out of the bed each time. I think it’s because I always look forward to attending the training. I’ve made new friends who are just as dedicated, encouraging and fun-loving. The Warrior coaches give us hard time in the training, but are never harsh. They know each one of us, they know how to stretch us and they always notice when we start to slack off. Even though at this point of writing, I haven’t made it to 3 months, I already can see improvements in myself: better strength and stamina, stronger core, and I learnt to how do proper push-up and sprinting, thanks to the coaches. Overall, I’m very happy with what I’ve gained from Warrior bootcamps and I’ll keep coming back for the 05:30 classes as long as life circumstances allow. I think being committed to be there at such an early hour is already an achievement itself and we the “five-thirty” chappies really wear it with pride. I love that team spirit. I don’t think I can find the same in somewhere else. And also the quality coaching from our Warrior coaches! I’m grateful for their dedication in providing us a challenging yet fun training session each time, which truly unleashes the inner child in us. And if there’s rain, even better. Lastly, I would like to give a cheer to the entire Warrior family: Hey Warriors, train hard, fight easy! And not forgetting, play hard, have fun, together. 😉