The SAF publishes exactly one weight-related number, and it applies to pre-enlistees: a BMI above 27.0 means a 19-week basic training course rather than the standard one (CMPB). No weight or BMI standard for serving NSmen appears in any published MINDEF or CMPB document. Separately, no registered weight-management trial of GLP-1 medication has ever enrolled anyone below BMI 23 (registry query 2026) — which is where most men reading this sit. What is genuinely useful for someone training for a fitness test is the concurrent-training evidence: what happens to strength and muscle when heavy running runs alongside lifting.

Concurrent training: doing aerobic work and resistance work in the same programme. The question researchers ask is whether the aerobic half blunts the adaptations the lifting half is meant to produce.

The one weight number the SAF publishes

CMPB's pre-enlistee page states it plainly: "If your BMI exceeds 27.0, your basic training duration will be 19 weeks." The page describes that programme as designed to help recruits improve their physical fitness progressively while learning basic soldiering skills (CMPB). It is a training-length trigger at enlistment. It is not a pass mark and not a fitness standard, and no other BMI number, weight standard or body-fat figure appears anywhere on the page.

That 27.0 sits close to Singapore's national obesity classification, where overweight begins at BMI 23.0 and obesity at 27.5 (HPB-MOH 2016). They are different numbers from different documents doing different jobs — one sets a course length at enlistment, the other is a national health classification — and they should not be treated as the same threshold. Why Singapore's numbers sit lower than the international ones is covered in why Asian BMI thresholds are lower.

Is there a weight standard for NSmen?

No published one was found. MINDEF's NS FIT fact sheet sets the annual requirement as either passing the IPPT or completing the 10-session NS FIT programme, which includes one IPPT attempt. It lists five activity categories — aerobic threshold, metabolic circuits, weight loss, sports and games-based, and IPPT-specific exercises — with no numeric target attached to any of them (MINDEF 2021). "Weight Loss" there names an activity type inside a fitness programme, not a standard to meet.

Anyone quoting a BMI limit for NSmen should be asked where it comes from, because the only published figure applies to pre-enlistees.

The test, and where its numbers live

The IPPT is three stations: sit-ups, a maximum of 25 points for abdominal strength and endurance; push-ups, a maximum of 25 for upper-body strength and endurance; and a 2.4 km run, a maximum of 50 for cardiovascular fitness and lower-body strength and endurance. The total maximum is 100 points (CMPB). MINDEF's own announcement of the format confirms the same three stations and 25/25/50 split, and confirms that the thresholds to Pass, to Pass with monetary incentive, and to achieve Silver and Gold vary by age band (MINDEF 2014).

The full scoring table by age band, the pass mark, the award thresholds and the incentive amounts are published on the official NS portal, ns.sg. Those are the figures to work from, and they are the ones to read at source rather than from a third-party calculator. None of them appear in this article.

Where most readers sit relative to any treatment threshold

Singapore's registered product information for semaglutide sets the weight-management indication at a BMI of 30 or above, or 27 to under 30 with at least one weight-related comorbidity. Tirzepatide's current registrations carry a weight-management indication with the same BMI thresholds; the 2023 injection registration SIN16718P covers type 2 diabetes only (NDF Singapore).

Below those thresholds there is nothing to read. A query of 354 registered interventional trials of semaglutide or tirzepatide in obesity, overweight or weight loss found no weight-management efficacy trial with an entry threshold below BMI 23 — the lowest anywhere was 23 in an Indian phase 4 study and 24 in Chinese phase 3 trials, and the global programme floor is 27 (registry query 2026). The single real-world analysis in people below BMI 25 studied 45 patients who were being treated for type 2 diabetes, with dosing optimised for blood glucose, and found average weight loss of 1.61 kg with no statistically significant change in BMI (Carson 2025).

So for a 24-year-old at BMI 22 who wants a faster 2.4 km, the medication question has never been put to a trial — not answered unfavourably, never asked. Saying so is more useful than either reassurance or warning, and the same absence in more detail is worth reading before anyone draws a conclusion from it. Fitness-test performance has never been an endpoint in any weight-management trial of these medicines, and nothing here should be read as this clinic offering a route to a test result.

What heavy running actually does to lifting

This is the part a young man preparing for a fitness test can use.

The current best analysis pooled 43 studies in healthy adults of any sex and age, each comparing a concurrent programme against an identical strength prescription with no aerobic training. The standardised mean differences were −0.06 for maximal strength (95% CI −0.20 to 0.09, p=0.446), −0.28 for explosive strength (−0.48 to −0.08, p=0.007), and −0.01 for muscle hypertrophy (−0.16 to 0.18, p=0.919). The attenuation of explosive strength was more pronounced when the two were performed in the same session (p=0.043) than when sessions were separated by at least three hours. No moderator mattered: not the type of aerobic training (cycling versus running), not frequency, not training status, not mean age above or below 40. The authors' conclusion is that concurrent aerobic and strength training does not compromise muscle hypertrophy or maximal strength development, while explosive strength gains may be attenuated (Schumann 2022).

Three things about that. The results are standardised effect sizes and do not convert into kilograms. The three-hour separation is a subgroup contrast rather than a randomised comparison of timing, so it is a reasonable habit rather than a proven prescription. And explosive strength means jumping and sprinting — not what a 2.4 km run, a push-up station or a sit-up station measures.

The older meta-analysis in this area reached a different conclusion and belongs on the record alongside it. Across 21 studies and 422 effect sizes, it found that resistance training concurrently with running, but not cycling, was associated with significant decrements in both hypertrophy and strength, and that the frequency and duration of endurance training correlated negatively with gains in size, strength and power (correlations of −0.26 to −0.35 for frequency and −0.29 to −0.75 for duration). Its conclusion was that interference depends on the modality, frequency and duration of the endurance training chosen (Wilson 2012).

Read together: the older analysis found a running-specific penalty, and the newer one — a decade later, twice the studies, with a matched strength prescription as its comparator — did not reproduce it and found no modality effect at all. The effect sizes quoted from the older paper are within-condition means rather than between-group differences, so the figures often cited from it are not measured interference effects.

What that means for training

Do both, and put a gap between them where the day allows. The pooled evidence says the lifting is not the thing at risk from the running — and in Singapore the lifting is the thing being skipped.

National survey figures reproduced in Singapore's physical activity guidelines show 76.4% of adults aged 18–74 meeting the physical-activity guideline, while only 33.8% did sufficient muscle-strengthening activity — 44.1% in the 18–29 age band (SPAG 2022). Our reading of that gap is that young Singaporean men are largely meeting the aerobic half of the guideline and skipping the strength half, which is the half the aerobic work does not replace. The same guidelines ask for muscle-strengthening work on at least two days a week, at 8–12 repetitions per set.

The dose that starts producing results is smaller than most people expect. In resistance-trained men, one hard set per exercise, two to three times a week, taken to failure over 8–12 weeks produced significant strength gains, which the authors themselves call a floor rather than a target (Androulakis-Korakakis 2020). More weekly sets is associated with a graded increase in muscle growth with diminishing returns, though the widely quoted "10 sets a week" threshold comes from a categorical comparison that was only a trend and did not reach significance (Schoenfeld 2017). What a minimum effective dose looks like in practice covers the detail.

If you are eating less at the same time, protein and resistance training are the two things holding lean mass in place: across 114 trials and 4,184 people, lean mass was statistically unchanged where resistance training accompanied caloric restriction (Lopez 2022), and 1.2–1.6 g of protein per kg of body weight per day during energy restriction supports appetite control and lean-mass preservation against lower intakes (Leidy 2015).

Body composition and test performance: what has and has not been measured

Not in Singaporeans. No study of body composition or fitness-test performance in Singaporean NSmen or young Singaporean men was found, which is a genuine gap in the local evidence.

The nearest data is foreign. In 338 US law-enforcement recruits, a higher percentage of skeletal muscle mass and a lower percentage of fat mass were associated with better performance on a battery that included timed push-ups, sit-ups and a running test — with correlations of r = ±0.107 to 0.293, meaning body composition explained at most about 9% of the variance in any single test (Lockie 2021). It is cross-sectional, measured by hand-and-foot bioimpedance rather than DXA, and the tests are not the IPPT.

In 136 mostly-officer US Army personnel, the measured obesity rate ranged from 18.5% to 39.7% depending purely on which measure was used; BMI, waist circumference and waist-to-height ratio each under-classified obesity relative to body-fat percentage at least 21% of the time; and those classified obese were significantly more likely to fail the physical fitness test (Hollerbach 2022). The transferable point there is the discordance between measures rather than the prevalence figures, which belong to a small and unusual US sample.

One boundary on all of this: there is no authoritative body-fat-percentage threshold to work to. A DXA study of 537 Singaporean adults stated directly that no clear consensus threshold exists and no Asian consensus cut-off has been set (Yishun Study 2021). Any body-fat percentage presented as a standard is somebody's house number.

Where medication does and does not fit

For a young man sitting below every published threshold, the levers with evidence behind them are training and protein, and the concurrent-training literature says the two halves of his week are compatible. GLP-1 medication in Singapore is prescription-only and is dispensed where a doctor judges it clinically appropriate, against indications that begin well above where most NSmen sit (NDF Singapore).

At GetLean, our philosophy is that the medication is a catalyst for people it suits, and that muscle protection and a planned exit are what make the result hold. If you are well above the thresholds above and want a proper assessment rather than a number from an article, you can check your eligibility and put the question to the doctor at consultation.

Common questions

Is there a weight or BMI limit for NSmen?

No published one. Searching MINDEF's and CMPB's own sites, the only weight-related figure published anywhere applies to pre-enlistees (CMPB). MINDEF's NS FIT fact sheet states the annual requirement as passing the IPPT or completing the 10-session programme, and lists Weight Loss as one of five activity types with no target attached (MINDEF 2021).

What is the BMI 27 figure in NS about?

It is a basic-training length trigger for pre-enlistees. CMPB's page states that if your BMI exceeds 27.0 your basic training duration will be 19 weeks, in a programme designed to build fitness progressively alongside basic soldiering (CMPB). It is not a pass mark, not a fitness standard, and it does not apply to NSmen. It also sits close to, but is a separate number from, Singapore's national obesity classification of 27.5 (HPB-MOH 2016).

Does running ruin your gains?

Not for size or maximal strength, according to the best current evidence. Pooling 43 studies against a matched strength programme, concurrent aerobic training left muscle growth and maximal strength unchanged; the only significant penalty was to explosive strength, and it was worse when both were done in the same session (Schumann 2022). An older meta-analysis did find a running-specific penalty to both size and strength (Wilson 2012), and the newer, larger and better-controlled analysis did not reproduce it.

Can GLP-1 medication help someone pass a fitness test?

There is no evidence for that and it is not what these medicines have been studied for. Every registered weight-management trial enrolled people at BMI 27 or above, and none has enrolled anyone below BMI 23 (registry query 2026). In Singapore the registered weight-management indication begins at BMI 30, or 27 with a weight-related condition (NDF Singapore). Fitness-test performance has never been an endpoint in any of them.

How should you train if you have to run and lift?

Do both, and separate them in the day where you can. In the pooled data the attenuation of explosive strength was significant when the two were done in the same session and not significant when they were at least three hours apart (Schumann 2022). The strength half is the one Singaporeans skip: national survey data show 76.4% of adults meeting the activity guideline against 33.8% doing sufficient muscle-strengthening work (SPAG 2022).