Pushing it: A wrestler's life

His alarm clock goes off at 2 am every morning – that’s when wrestler Munir Ahmed starts his day. He chows down on 250 grams of butter, eaten with mixed preserved fruits and herbs, gets a body massage and then does warm-up exercises for 30 minutes. Then he really gets down to business. Ahmed spends at least two hours in the morning doing nothing but push-ups, and then another two hours in the evening doing even more push-ups. This routine is repeated daily, except for Thursday, when Ahmed gives his aching muscles a rest. This may seem excessive for an average man, but Ahmed is anything but average. He recently set a record for doing the most push-ups, completing 2,503 push-ups in less than two hours. Quite a feat, considering it would take me about a year and several ruptured muscles to do the same.

Before I met Ahmed, I had imagined a huge WWF-type wrestler with arms the size of my torso and an attitude to match, but the reality is quite different. He is an unassuming young man of average height, and his bulk and muscularity are not evident in his everyday clothes. He isn’t a steroid-powered rage machine either. By his own admission, he is religious and prayer is a vital part of his routine. He spends a fair amount of time each day in meditation, and enjoys his family’s company when he’s not working out. He attributes his success to his parents as much as to his prayers.

“Once when I was massaging my father’s legs, he said he wished that I would become a successful wrestler. So I think his prayers finally caused my career to lift off,” says Ahmed. “I am so proud to be a record-holder now.”

But Ahmed isn’t letting his success go to his head — just his biceps. He still puts his body through grueling workouts and exercises in the wee hours of the morning, after which he says his Fajr prayers and then eats a king’s breakfast: three parathas with one kilogram of lassi and one kilogram of milky tea. He goes back to bed after this and wakes up after six hours to sprint for about an hour, followed by… you guessed it… more push-ups.

Ahmed claims it is his consumption of dairy products and vegetarian food that keeps him fit enough to do so many push-ups. Milk, clarified butter and almonds are the holy trinity of a wrestler’s diet, and Ahmed consumes each with great relish. He doesn’t drink much water; preferring to guzzle gallons of pomegranate juice as he says it gives him energy.

The young wrestler has suffered his fair share of setbacks on the road to success, undergoing a lot of physical pain in his quest to be the best. When he was younger he damaged his right ear during a wrestling competition and got a chunky Y-shaped cut on his forehead after a tough contest against an army wrestler in 2005. “These injuries are the jewels of a wrestler and I don’t mind having them,” says Ahmed, who is also a volunteer wrestler for the police department.

Ahmed completed his secondary education from a local school but decided to stop studying after that to concentrate on his wrestling career. His parents didn’t have a problem with that, as he comes from a family of well-known wrestlers. His father Mohammad Bashir and elder brother Shauqat Pahlwan are considered wrestling pioneers in their small town, Kot Abdul Malek. Ahmed began training with his father and brother when he was 14 years old, and also took lessons from the renowned Lahori wrestler, the late Abdul Rasheed, also known as Cheeda Champion.

“Education was never a priority,” says Ahmed. “Instead, wrestling is our main occupation. It was convenient too, as I had a teacher at my own home in the form of my father.”

Ahmed also looks up to his mother, who he says sold her jewellery in order to pay for his special diet and training. Ahmed says she wanted him to be a wrestler instead of a doctor or an engineer.

“When I look at my mother, tears come to my eyes,” says Ahmed. “I am embarrassed that my mother sold her jewellery to meet my diet expenses… she just wanted to make me a successful wrestler.”  Despite his not having a steady job, Ahmed isn’t particularly concerned about the future, and says he will take things as they come. “It is all about fate and Allah’s will,” says Ahmed. “He wanted me to be a wrestler and so I am.”

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, January 30^th, 2011.