How To Become A Superhero Version Of Yourself

The life-changing benefits of training (or, why I took up bodybuilding at 30)

- Prakash Amritraj

People want to know why I train. They think it’s to look good, a complete vanity play. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

By the time I retired from the life of a professional athlete at 30, I’d been training at a very high level for about two decades. Back then, my regimen was geared towards strengthening my game, and consisted of a two-hour morning session with the great Ken Matsuda, who’s trained several champions, including Jim Courier, Michael Chang and Maria Sharapova. This session would encompass speed work, agility, endurance training and flexibility. Then we’d shift onto the tennis court for another two hours of drills, followed by practice matches.

But even before that period of my life, the importance of working hard had been instilled in me. Growing up, I heard stories of my grandmother sitting in my father Vijay Amritraj’s classes to take notes, which she would bring back to him in the hospital, because he was unwell. I heard stories of that sickly child, who most people thought would amount to nothing, but who’d rise before the sun was up, and run miles and miles to improve his lung capacity. They did this for a future no one except them could foresee. My grandmother and father credit their life’s successes to these qualities: grit, hard work, perseverance and belief in a vision.

In aspiring to achieve this level of greatness, training was ingrained in my life. When life’s timing called on me to transition from professional tennis, I wasn’t going to be able to give it up along with the sport, nor did I want to. I was proud of this burning desire to put in “sweat equity”, as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson calls it. But if I wasn’t training to improve my game and become more competitive, why was I training at all? I’m not the kind of person who can do something without single-minded intent.