(L) Yang Shuaihong raises his right arm as he faces the audience during a bodybuilding competition on July 13 in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. (R) Yang workouts at the gym. (Photo : Trending in China/Facebook)
As a bunch of shirtless men oozing with confidence display their muscular physique before a crowd, one stood out not for his sculpted arms or well-defined torso but for a conspicuous missing body part.
Contestant number 39 appeared on stage donning the same black shorts like the rest of his competitors, but looking down further, he was wearing something else: a prosthetic leg.
Yang Shuaihong, an amputee, joined the China Bodybuilding and Open Fitness Championship on July 13 in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. Yang competed against more than 50 hopefuls and made it to the top 30, reported South China Morning Post.
The 23-year-old former dance instructor works as a personal trainer in Chengdu. It was his first time to enter a bodybuilding competition, and at a national level at that one.
In 2014, while at the back of a motorcycle driven by a companion, a truck hit them. His right leg suffered the most and had to be amputated below the knee.
After the tragedy, Yang spent almost five months to recuperate to be fit to work again.
He never wasted any opportunity to improve his condition. He made his first attempt to exercise right on his hospital bed.
Prone to experience muscle atrophy--the decrease in muscle mass--during his hospitalization due to his restricted movement, Yang tried to exercise while confined on his bed, and used elastic ropes to aid him.
Another reason why Yang started his rehabilitation without delay was because he was thinking of the probable effect of the tragic incident to his mother, according to People’s Daily Online.
Reports about the determination to live life as normal as possible by some one-legged people in the country continue to surface.
Er Ma A Yi and Ji Zhengyong in their late 20s and 30s respectively, prove that physical disability should not hinder one to continue living; more so, to serve other people, reported Daily Mail.
Dubbed “The Oriental Venus” by Chinese netizens, Er Ma A Yi works as a singing teacher in a primary school. She figured in an accident when she was 3, losing her right leg in the process.
For more than a decade now, Ji, a general practitioner, have being making house calls in Chongqing. At 14, he lost his right leg in a car accident.
Qu Shitao, a student at Donghua University of Science and Technology in Jiangxi Province at the time of the report by the Shanghai Television Station in 2012, earned the title “Inspiring Basketball King” when people saw a video of him playing the sport, according to China Hush.
As Yang, Er Ma A Yi, Ji and Qu might jointly agree to say: “It’s all in the mind.”
