Make Me Buff

Intro to the Gym

That evening I left home telling my parents I was gonna play soccer, and headed over to the train station, half a kilometre from my house. From there I exited the west side, and found a poster for the 'Muscle House', gym, with sector 3 written on the poster to mark its location.

I asked an auto driver to get me to that gym with my pocket change, but he turned me down saying that the gym was right at the end of the street, and I walked the way over there.

Through the glass wall I could see in there, weights and various pieces of equipment, treadmills and this weird standing cycle machine, some plates were stacked, some scattered, I could see several people. Most were ordinary, but in the corner of the gym I saw this incredibly muscled man lifting mystically large weights, he was no joke lifting half of all the weights in the gym all by himself, repeatedly with a look of huge strain on his face. I hadn't seen such a sight before, and stood there for 5 whole minutes watching the real-life superhero repeatedly hoist the huge barbell to his chest.

Soon enough the man left and opened the door for me, I was now sure I was mistaken when I previously thought that the gym had to be expensive to get you muscles.

The whole gym was rather small, a large room slightly bigger than 2 bedrooms put together. It seemed very serious. Posters on the wall saying 'Today I do what other wont so tomorrow I do what others can't, and 'Pain is Gain', the whole left side and everchanging mural of people flexing in the mirror. It had a strange permanent musk of sweat despite obviously having the ceiling fans and AC running. I went over to the desk, which didn't have a separate room, and spoke with the trainer. A medium height thickly built man with dark skin and muscles that looked hard and tough like well-used anchor ropes under his skin. With a serious face and rough black hair.

"So this gym will work, right?", I asked him.

"This place has all the equipment you need to look like me", he explained, flexing his thick python like biceps.

"Ok is this place really only 500 rupees a month, even I can pay for that", I asked him.

"Yeah, it's the least expensive gym in the whole area, do you want a discount or something", he asked. "What year of school are you in?", he asked.

"I am in 8th standard", I answered.

"You look pretty small", he said, "I used to look like you at your age".

At that time I was 5'4 and 39kgs. I had grown 4 inches in the last 6 months with no gain in weight at all. People would say I looked like a twig, and the fat fool Harsh wasn't the only one who would pick on me.

"This gym only as payment by the month", he said. "Unlike the other gyms there is no discount for joining 6 months or a year at a time, we don't need that here", he explained. It didn't matter, even I could afford this place without a discount.

"OK how do I get big", I asked him.

He pointed to the pullup bar propped on the wall, "see that, big back, right there", he explained.

Then to the squat rack and leg press, "big legs".

Then to the bench press, that lying down lift that looked scary to do, "big chest, over there"

Then to the dumbbell rack, as I looked at the dumbbells labelled from 2kg to 30kg, "big arms", he explained.

"What more big do you need?", he asked me.

"Uh nothing", I answered, I felt foolish for thinking I could only gain muscle if the gym was expensive, which of my other ideas were dumb.

"That was oversimplified", explained the trainer, "come back with 1 months fees and I will tell you what you really need to do.