Ache Days Every Week

Ah Boy to Muscleman JOSHUA TAN exercises up to five times a week, and loves it when everything aches the day after a workout. We put him to the test by making him hit a huge tyre repeatedly with a 12kg hammer, and he laps up every sweaty minute. Inspired yet?

- Celine Tan

Fitspiration? This is the first time I’m hearing this term,” guffaws Joshua Tan, as he sits across from us in a café where we’re having a chat before his first 8 DAYS solo cover shoot. “What do I think of being a fitness inspiration? I’m flabbergasted.” No. Seriously. We’re flabbergasted. How can anyone post shirtless pics that look like that (we refer to @joshuatwe13’s abs-tastic pool photo dated July 20 on his Instagram) and vids that show him doing jumping push-ups and leg raises while being whacked on the abs by someone who looks like a crazy person (posted on August 19) without knowing what “fitspiration” or “gymspiration” mean?

Perhaps Josh is too busy actually working out to bother about things like #fitspo. The 26-year- old takes his fitness very seriously. So seriously that he refuses to take off his shirt for the shoot, despite our cajoling. And despite the fact that it’s the Fitspiration Issue. “When I shot Ah Boys to Men 3: Frogmen [in 2014], I was at my best [physically],” he tells us earnestly. “If that was 100 per cent, now I’m about 70 or 80 per cent. It’s like a drop, and I don’t want to drop.” Okay, so he’s a perfectionist (whose six-pack abs are probably having an off-day). And lest you think he’s a bit of a diva, Joshua is actually really down-to-earth. In person, he looks younger and smaller than on screen (Speaking of which, you can catch him on TV now as a playboy in Fine Tune, the Ch 5 drama partially set in the ’80s.). He offers to carry plastic bags filled with bottles of mineral water (And why not, since his muscles are the biggest?). He wolfs down a red bean bun from the bakery on our way to the shoot. And he sits in our car and gives us directions to the most ulu gym in Singapore.