Cover Story: The Way to Win, Pg 2

Leander Paes Goran Ivanisevic

Leander Paes and Goran Ivanisevic
Goran, 6 ft 5 in, is twice Wimbledon finalist; Paes, not even 5 ft 10 in, hasn't passed the second round.

If India is to awaken from its long sleep, then Lillee's words must become gospel. In certain sports, like basketball and sprinting, the genetic elements of height and fast-twitch muscle (which accounts for explosiveness and is said to exist more in African-American athletes) are tough to counter. Yet in other sports, while advanced training techniques emerged, India slumbered. As sprinter Rajeev Balakrishnan, training in California, says, "In India they train with the same coaches who trained Milkha Singh."

Modern sporting systems have engaged in relentless research to acquire that additional millisecond of speed, that minuscule extra surge of explosiveness. Done's cricket academy even employs a boxing coach to check "evasiveness and quickness", while the Indian board is still planning its academy. In tennis, Indian players practise by rallying endlessly, unaware a new thinking exists in Germany. Researchers K. Webber and H.K. Struder prescribe what is known as type-specific training -- to replicate exactly what occurs in matches. Since they found average clay court points last 8.5 seconds, they focus students to undergo high-intensity training for exactly that period.

But to find power, like Michael Johnson's explosion off the starting blocks, requires pain in the weight training room. Athletics coach Ken Bosen laughs that "European women bench press more weight than Indian male throwers". Dr Kannan Pugazendi, who assisted 200m sprinter Anand Natarajan, says, "Anand can do a 210 kg half squat while Johnson does 300 kg." Indians are capable of such power, it's a question of age and education. As Virendra Punia, Indian hammer thrower, explains, "I learnt weights by imitating boys in a gym." The hockey team is as chaotic, for as Aldrin explains: "We should be given individual programmes saying we're weak in the legs or the shoulders." More important, says Joshi, is to "start training before the body assumes a shape. Then it can't be moulded". Thrower Shakti Singh discovered the discus in his early 20s, when western athletes had a 10-year grooming advantage over him.

Raw strength is in itself futile. Like water from a dam guided on to a turbine to generate electricity, power is most effective when it is channelised efficiently. In tennis, coaches guide players on how to transfer their raw, stored power from their legs to trunk to shoulders, with 80 per cent of racket velocity during a serve arriving from a simple but crucial snap of the wrist and forearm. So bio-mechanists film players to study and tune their body movements. In Australia, the cricket academy uses five cameras -- one from above -- to check a bowler's stride is not too long, says Done, for then he cannot transfer power optimally. European sprinters are filmed just to test the alignment of their hands in motion. In India, the one bio-mechanics laboratory in Patiala, says A.S.V. Prasad, executive director at the Sports Authority of India (SAI), "is not of much practical use since we don't have the latest equipment."

Indian athletes are yet to be convinced by sports scientists, one national champion saying, "they're collecting pension". Even Joshi sneers that the Indian Association of Sports Medicine is of "zero value", recounting how recent papers dealt with primitive subjects like the benefit of Vitamin C to soccer players. Bangalore sai centre's sports physiologist Dr G.L. Khanna disagrees with the criticism, yet admits "we're 15-20 years behind the West".

It is unarguable. While India remains largely indifferent to the changing demands of one-day cricket, the Australian Board sent Glenn McGrath and gang to the Australian Institute of Sport last month for testing on muscle imbalance, upperbody strength and explosiveness. Tests included asking players to jump off blocks of different heights -- from 10 cm to 100 cm -- and on landing to immediately leap into the air. All this to measure how they absorb force and then turn their strength around to lift off. Like when bowling.

This is what Andrew Kokinos, trainer to the Indian cricketers, might salivate for. He deals with ignorance levels that impede every fitness demand. Diet is a fine example. Lillee recoiled when Kokinos mentioned that Indian players believe " a cup of tea and biscuits" were sufficient breakfast on match days. Replied Lillee, "I ate a big breakfast and a food supplement during the drinks break." Like a car thirsty for petrol on a long journey, it is impossible to demand peak physical output from the body without fuelling it carefully in return. Visiting Seoul once, Bosen noted that the athletes cafeteria had five separate counters, each catering to different disciplines with calories measured exactly. In India, says Punia, throwers eat the same food runners do at the sai centres, only they're allowed a larger quantity. Sports drinks too, unlike water which often merely quenches thirst, reintroduce vital supplements in the body. In the US, Leander would undergo tests merely to measure his sodium loss. Then Dr Michael Bergeron of the Department of Exercise Science, University of Massachussetts, instructed him on his sweat rate (litres/hour) and therefore how much he must replenish. In India, hockey players drink from a tap in the field.

Johnson Balakrishnan

Johnson and Balakrishnan
The Indian estimates Johnson bench-presses 115-120 kg; he can't do that much.

It will take a generation and more for India to compete on even terms and it must begin with selecting the gifted. East Germany, says Dr Paes, did muscle biopsies on five-year-old children and depending on their quantity of fast-twitch fibre allotted them specific sports. Bangalore's sai centre made a start with aerobic, endurance and speed tests on 8-10 year olds, but the pace is tortoise-ish since it has tested only 600 children over six years. A simpler measure, says Russian coach Alexsey Ivanov, is to get children to "skip or do pull-ups and push-ups". From age five, he adds.

Information too must be spread. In Australia, a pamphlet illustrating the correct fast bowling technique is about to be circulated to all clubs and schools. Similarly, India has to disseminate advice about diet to small towns where athletes still eat ghee and some coaches contend that weight training has no utility. Planning, down to religious detail, is imperative too. Like Sridharan, who has broken down his volleyball team's training minutely, and in recognition of changed equations has assigned 118 hours of his 232 training hours to strength and speed development.

Import the best brains and steal expertise, says Michael Ferreira, like the Chinese who snapped up East German experts. Leander, for instance, works out in Florida with trainer Pat Etcheberry, sports psychologist Jim Loehr and bio-mechanist Jack Groppell. As Ramesh Krishnan says, "It's a shame players have to relocate to train." Federations, studies in lethargy, need to search the dictionary for the definition of foresight. It is absurd that MRF invited 40 coaches at its own expense for a dynamic seminar when it was truly the Indian cricket board's responsibility. Finally, sports science requires the boost of official recognition. Joshi says athletes aren't willing to pay Rs 400 for a consultation, which makes his business financially unviable and the athlete locked in a state of illiteracy.

Higher, faster, stronger is an Olympian cliche, yet its relevance has never been greater. Cunning, cleverness, the genius of hand to eye co-ordination have always been India's offerings. Those virtues remain constant, but the rules of battle have been altered. If India has to run with Ronaldo then it must sprout wings in its feet and cement in its shoulders. Otherwise a chess board will rest as the only alternative.