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Cardio coaching at 3am. Excessive protein breakfasts earlier than dawn. Testing your physique’s bodily and psychological limits.
This can be a typical day for skilled Muslim athletes fasting throughout Ramadan.
Ramadan is a interval of deep non secular reflection, and is taken into account the holiest month for Muslims, who abstain from foods and drinks — not even a drop of water — day by day from daybreak to sundown for about 30 days.
Sure teams are exempt from fasting equivalent to kids, the aged, sick or pregnant, these nursing, menstruating or travelling lengthy distances.
Nonetheless, skilled athletes don’t fall on this group.
‘A significant a part of my life’
For Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs participant Khaled Rajab, coaching and taking part in within the NRL may be troublesome throughout Ramadan, he values spirituality deeply.
“Once I’m fasting and I am coaching or I am taking part in, you get these moments the place you begin doubting your self,” Rajab says.
“However when you end that recreation, it is such as you’re ticking one other field and also you’re getting stronger mentally.
“So I really feel it is a important a part of my life.”
Fasting whereas taking part in sports activities is nothing new.
Since he started taking part in in Canterbury’s junior ranks, Rajab would prepare and play video games whereas fasting, saying assist from the membership and a high-protein breakfast at suhoor — the meal earlier than daybreak — would at all times assist.
“My entire life, all of the boys could be like ‘How are you going to survive no water? No meals?’ I simply continuously remind myself of the folks in want and that is nothing in comparison with what they are going by way of,” he says.
A very testing time
Boxer Tina Rahimi additionally has skilled fasting as knowledgeable athlete, and recollects the 2022 world championships as a very testing time.
“That was actually, actually powerful as a result of I needed to concentrate on reducing weight and on the similar time, concentrate on getting one of the best out of my coaching to organize for the world championships in Turkey,” she says.
She would stand up at 3am earlier than suhoor to do her cardio coaching, then prepare at a decrease depth through the day, after which be again on the fitness center at about 8pm as soon as she had damaged her quick.
Now, Rahimi’s only some months away from competing within the Paris 2024 Olympics, making historical past as Australia’s first feminine Muslim boxer to compete.
And with a lot on the road, Rahimi says it is essential to her she stays aggressive in her coaching, even whereas fasting.
“You are coaching with a bunch of athletes who’re all going to the Olympics,” she says.
“Everybody’s how everybody else is coaching and the way laborious everybody’s coaching and it is like competitors, however in a great way … and hopefully, I can nonetheless get that push with them throughout Ramadan as effectively.”
Each Rahimi and Rajab say Ramadan is about way more than simply lacking lunch, however is a time for them to develop nearer to their God.
“Fasting’s not nearly abstaining from meals or drink, however we quick to remind ourselves that [for] folks in want that is nothing in comparison with what different persons are going by way of” Rajab says.
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