Irving is now like a big brother – I discovered that under his no-nonsense, menacing exterior is a man with deep integrity of what he does with a passion of a PITBull.
Serendipity. That’s how I found out about The PIT. All I did was take a different route home and I walked past the gym… It ticked off some items on my checklist. It was close to work and home and it was a boutique gym, which meant I didn’t have to deal with mountains of people and locker room drama. Plus, I needed work on my cholesterol and diabetes. After some email correspondence, I was face to face with the owner and PIT master Irving Henson. While he shares the same name as the master puppeteer Jim Henson, there was nothing funny about our first session. Built like a brick house with huge bulldog eyes, tattoos covering every inch of visible skin and a menacing drawl, he isn’t a guy you’d mess with. At my trial session, he basically threw out everything I had learnt in my decade of going to gyms and having trainers. WHAT?! But that piqued my interest enough…I mean, a whole new way of working out? No way! The lack of mirrors and weighing machine were explained succinctly by Irving – ‘You want to hiao, you hiao at home.’ and ‘Weighing machine? Just look in the mirror. You like what you see? No? Then train harder, eat cleaner.’ And so I put pen to paper and haven’t looked back since. Close to 4 months on, I am a happier, fitter camper. I started out as little cricket – I remember the first few sessions, I hardly broke a sweat but Irving assured me with his ‘Little Cricket’ speech – ‘Slowly lah. You will get there.’ Today, I can deadlift my body weight of 70kg and nothing gets me more than being able to improve my bench press max of 27kg because when I started, the only thing I could press was the button on the timer. I LOVE heading out to ‘the bar’ as they call it and leave floating recharged and energised. Everyone from the trainers to fellow trainees are fun, warm and friendly. No pretentiousness, no ego. Just a whole lotta sweat and a whole lotta fun. Irving is now like a big brother – I discovered that under his no-nonsense, menacing exterior is a man with deep integrity of what he does with a passion of a PITBull. Everything we do pushes me until I wanna ‘pengsan’ but what keeps me coming back is that it is simply bloody awesome! Oh, and then there’s that ‘minor’ thing of my cholesterol and blood sugar, both coming down enough for my doctor to say I must be doing something right – That something is The PIT.
