60 — AUGUST 2019
The life-changing benefits of training (or, why I took up bodybuilding at 30)
eople 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
WRIT TEN BY PRAKASH AMRITRAJimportance 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,