Make Me Buff

Visible Progress

        It was by no means easy. The workouts were hard enough that my best appetite was barely enough to take away the pain before the next one. I was eating more food then I had ever eaten before. My mother had chimed in and increased the number of meals I was eating every day from 2 to 4, it had become my hobby. My weight had gone up to 45 kg, and my strength was climbing up in most of the exercises, though it was getting harder to keep getting results, I really liked the feeling of straining against weight and unlike many, getting stronger then before, doing more then before, was the only drug I needed.

       Harsh was with me for the past few weeks. Seeing him in the gym made me realize that though he looked like a monster in front of my classmates, he still didn't look big in the gym, just another overweight guy with slightly better strength then expected. Other guys in the gym dwarfed him in strength, it was the only place where Harsh would never have messed with me.

Harsh, was making progress at a pretty fast rate. Though with some setbacks. The first one was his ego, he insisted that his right arm being stronger then the left was no big deal, and that it was supposed to be that way cause his right arm was his 'power hand' that he used to win all the arm wrestling matches in the grade. 

The trainer dealt with this by giving Harsh a 30kg bar, and asked him to overhead press it as many times as he could. After the first five reps, his arm strength imbalance was obvious, his right arm shot up as his left struggled to move its own side of the bar, the trainer had to support his left arm to keep the bar from tipping to the side by reps 6, and by rep 7, his left arm could hardly move, causing the bar to tip over dangerously to the side, the trainer needed to catch his fall. 

Very cleverly, the trainer had asked Neeraj to videotape his overhead presses, and show it to Harsh, as the trainer explained why his arm imbalance held him back, how all the strong people had equal strength in both arms, and same with weightlifters.  I had never seen Harsh so humbled. 

Thus, when I say fast progress, I mean that in just 3 weeks or so his left arm was almost as strong as the right. He could now do 25 curls of 10 kg dumbbell with his left arm, and 35 with the right. thus, already stronger overall. 

What about my progress though, it was pretty significant. I could now do 3 sets of 15 push-ups. Harsh respected me, yes Harsh, for my hard work, though I still didn't trust him. What's more, I was pulling 25 kg for sets of 15 on the lat pull-down and that day had been able to push the last set for 22 reps. I had started doing goblet squats with the 17.5 kg dumbbells 2 days ago, every single other exercise had significant improvements compare to when I started. My form was better despite the increased weight, I was more used to it now. 

That was the day I had gone back to school after the weekend. I decided to ask my friend Sanjeev to arm wrestle me again, as I had felt confident in the strength I had gained. 

"Ok, you go on the other side of the desk", said Sanjeev. We clasped hands together and Sanjeev beat me like it was nothing. He was still way stronger then me. 

"How was that", I asked. 

"Quite good", answered Sanjeev. "Better then before", "have you been working out?". 

"I have", I answered. "Its been going pretty good". 

"I noticed that Harsh hasn't been so mean to you lately, so I would agree", Sanjeev responded. "Not just Harsh, Aditya and Neelesh haven't picked on you either, its.."

Just then Sanjeev turned his head and bent over to the side. I instinctively leaned over with him. It was Harsh, he was talking about me to none other then my other 2 bullies Aditya and Neelesh.

"Are you serious, he lifts 25 kg", said Neelesh in response to Harsh.

 "I saw him lift that 15 times in a row", replied Harsh. "Yesterday I saw him lift 30kg, that too 8 times in a row", said Harsh, trying to emphasize the weight I could lift. 

I saw my bullies Aditya and Neelesh nod in appreciation. Aditya and Neelesh were two of the most athletic guys in the class, not as much brute strength as Harsh, but very fast runners, and both were star soccer players. Aditya was a better at tackle sports like Kabbadi, and Neelesh was the star of the soccer team. Both of the above would pick on me like maniacs, taking my stuff and teasing me, and even cussing at me. This had gone down ever since Harsh had been working out with me in the gym, and i realized that it had been an entire week since either of them picked on me at all! How did I not notice!

I could now see why this was the case, Both these buys knew to listen if Harsh was the one telling them they should respect me, but this was still surprising.

I then saw Aditya ask Harsh about his stronger left hand, with which Harsh beat him easily.