01
WNBF PRO CARD
The WNBF tests its athletes: polygraph and urinalysis, every show. A pro card there is won against a drug-tested field, which is a different thing from an open one.
Nine chapters
How he got here.
Told from a podcast he recorded in Persian, transcribed properly rather than paraphrased. None of it is invented. Where a detail could not be confirmed, it is not written down.
01BEFORE ANY OF IT
THE RINK CAME FIRST
Long before a barbell, it was ice. He played for the Dubai Sandstorms and represented Dubai abroad, in a country with a handful of rinks and a very small player pool. He was named Best Player of the Abu Dhabi International Sports Club under-15 championship in 2015/16. The first training he ever did was not to look like anything. It was to be harder to play against.
- BEST PLAYER
- ADISC under-15 championship, 2015/16
- INTERNATIONAL
- Represented Dubai abroad
02SEVENTH GRADE
THE PART MOST COACHES LEAVE OUT
New friends, and a vape from Dragon Mart, because no supermarket would sell one. School caught him once; his mother made him tell his father, and his father said nothing. The second time was at home. He opened the bathroom door to reach the light and the smoke went out with him. He stalled, said he was in the shower, then realised his father was not downstairs at all. The vape lived in the false ceiling above that bathroom. He went up and found it torn out end to end. His father took his phone and snapped it in half.
03THAT SAME NIGHT
HE STILL DROVE HIM TO HOCKEY
He had a game that night, and his father took him anyway. Emad played as hard as he ever has, to show that none of it had touched him. He could see his father from the ice the whole time, showing nothing.
04AFTERWARDS
AND THEN THE RINK WENT
Hockey was taken off him. His father drove him to Dragon Mart and told him to point out the shop. Emad said the seller knew his face, so he walked past the door and tapped his foot twice. Ten minutes of nothing, then his father coming out and two police going in. A week later: a case, a fine they could not pay, and the shop closed. His school was changed too.
05WHERE THEY PUSHED HIM INSTEAD
HIS PARENTS PUT HIM IN THE GYM
Having taken one thing off him, they pushed him towards another. He was skinny and never the strongest boy on the ice, the thing hockey had always made him want to fix. He pushed a little harder one session and it worked. He pushed again and it worked again. He started training under a coach called Danny, and calls what happened next an addiction. He is careful with the word, because it took the place of the one his father had just taken off him.
06SIXTEEN
FOURTH OUT OF SEVEN, AND HE KNEW IT
A coach told him to compete. He said his standard was not there yet; the coach promised to prepare him. He stepped on stage for the first time in May 2018, at an untested show, natural, knowing he would not win it. He came fourth in a field of seven, and calls that the day he fell in love with the sport.
07THE FIRST CLIENT
A FRIEND CALLED LOUIE
Louie was a close friend carrying more weight than he wanted to, and asked to come along. Emad asked him for one thing, and it was not commitment or a goal: come with me, and put the responsibility on me. Then he went home and worked out how to make his friend leaner and stronger. That is the whole origin of the coaching, and Louie is still on the wall.
08EIGHTEEN
THE JOB, AND THE ROUTE HE DID NOT TAKE
In August 2020 FitRepublik in Dubai Sports City, seventy-five thousand square feet with a floor set aside for professional athletes, put him on their team and ran a campaign around him. He was eighteen. The following spring he talked to St Mary’s University in London about a degree, sat their taster day, and had the sports nutrition and sports rehabilitation routes open to him. He took neither. What he wanted to do was already working.
- FITREPUBLIK
- Dubai Sports City, from Aug 2020
- ST MARY'S
- London, applied 2021, did not go
09NOW
WNBF PRO, AND STILL IN THE LIBRARY
He earned his own pro card, then took his friends to theirs, and the year after that ten people, several of whom placed. He competes as a WNBF Pro: polygraph and urinalysis at every show. Alongside it he reads for a BSc in Medical Sciences at Surrey, where his final-year systematic review pooled eighteen studies on what anabolic-androgenic steroids do to the hearts of bodybuilders and strength athletes. That year in the literature is a large part of why he coaches natural.
- WNBF PRO CARD
- Men's Bodybuilding
- IFBB ELITE
- Pro card, 2023
- AED 10,000
- Pro Bodybuilding, 2nd place
01BEFORE ANY OF IT
THE RINK CAME FIRST
Long before a barbell, it was ice. He played for the Dubai Sandstorms and represented Dubai abroad, in a country with a handful of rinks and a very small player pool. He was named Best Player of the Abu Dhabi International Sports Club under-15 championship in 2015/16. The first training he ever did was not to look like anything. It was to be harder to play against.
- BEST PLAYER
- ADISC under-15 championship, 2015/16
- INTERNATIONAL
- Represented Dubai abroad
02SEVENTH GRADE
THE PART MOST COACHES LEAVE OUT
New friends, and a vape from Dragon Mart, because no supermarket would sell one. School caught him once; his mother made him tell his father, and his father said nothing. The second time was at home. He opened the bathroom door to reach the light and the smoke went out with him. He stalled, said he was in the shower, then realised his father was not downstairs at all. The vape lived in the false ceiling above that bathroom. He went up and found it torn out end to end. His father took his phone and snapped it in half.
03THAT SAME NIGHT
HE STILL DROVE HIM TO HOCKEY
He had a game that night, and his father took him anyway. Emad played as hard as he ever has, to show that none of it had touched him. He could see his father from the ice the whole time, showing nothing.
04AFTERWARDS
AND THEN THE RINK WENT
Hockey was taken off him. His father drove him to Dragon Mart and told him to point out the shop. Emad said the seller knew his face, so he walked past the door and tapped his foot twice. Ten minutes of nothing, then his father coming out and two police going in. A week later: a case, a fine they could not pay, and the shop closed. His school was changed too.
06SIXTEEN
FOURTH OUT OF SEVEN, AND HE KNEW IT
A coach told him to compete. He said his standard was not there yet; the coach promised to prepare him. He stepped on stage for the first time in May 2018, at an untested show, natural, knowing he would not win it. He came fourth in a field of seven, and calls that the day he fell in love with the sport.
07THE FIRST CLIENT
A FRIEND CALLED LOUIE
Louie was a close friend carrying more weight than he wanted to, and asked to come along. Emad asked him for one thing, and it was not commitment or a goal: come with me, and put the responsibility on me. Then he went home and worked out how to make his friend leaner and stronger. That is the whole origin of the coaching, and Louie is still on the wall.
08EIGHTEEN
THE JOB, AND THE ROUTE HE DID NOT TAKE
In August 2020 FitRepublik in Dubai Sports City, seventy-five thousand square feet with a floor set aside for professional athletes, put him on their team and ran a campaign around him. He was eighteen. The following spring he talked to St Mary’s University in London about a degree, sat their taster day, and had the sports nutrition and sports rehabilitation routes open to him. He took neither. What he wanted to do was already working.
- FITREPUBLIK
- Dubai Sports City, from Aug 2020
- ST MARY'S
- London, applied 2021, did not go
09NOW
WNBF PRO, AND STILL IN THE LIBRARY
He earned his own pro card, then took his friends to theirs, and the year after that ten people, several of whom placed. He competes as a WNBF Pro: polygraph and urinalysis at every show. Alongside it he reads for a BSc in Medical Sciences at Surrey, where his final-year systematic review pooled eighteen studies on what anabolic-androgenic steroids do to the hearts of bodybuilders and strength athletes. That year in the literature is a large part of why he coaches natural.
- WNBF PRO CARD
- Men's Bodybuilding
- IFBB ELITE
- Pro card, 2023
- AED 10,000
- Pro Bodybuilding, 2nd place
