#Fitness: ‘Endurance is the key,’ says PV Sindhu
The ace badminton player, whose recent World Championships gold took the country by storm, has a customised workout to help her with long rallies and agility on the court
Anyone who watched Pusarla Venkata Sindhu’s golden moments at BWF World Championships 2019 knows that a smashing victory is the best way to describe it. The soft-spoken 24-year-old from Hyderabad dominated with aggressive attacks and roaring energy. Besides sharper skill, experts found an impressive improvement in her fitness levels.
Here’s her regimen for domination:
I’m happy about finally bagging a gold after two bronze medals and two silvers. A lot of things helped – I had prepared well for the championship. The changes suggested by coach Kim Ji Hyun worked really well and training with at Chitra academy for the past two years changed my fitness levels a lot.
Just as for court-practice I not only work on defense, but also skill and attack, for fitness, I have been working on everything – weight training, endurance and agility. Every part of the body moves in badminton. Badminton is the fastest sport, so strengthening every part is important. Moreover, because I’m tall, opponents wouldn’t give me the opportunity to attack, they’d play in a downward slope – to win, I had to ready myself for it physically.
My personal trainer (Srikanth Verma), has customised my workouts. Improvement happened step by step. As the game now has long rallies and matches, the need for endurance has increased. Workouts are generally for 1.5-2 hours a day and the mix is tweaked depending on how exhausted I am and how much my trainer feels he should push me.
In off-season, I give workouts my 100%, but around tournaments as I want to give the match everything, I give workouts about 50% and avoid heavy weights.
I usually have a breakfast of milk, eggs and a south Indian dish like idli/dosa/upma. Lunch and dinner are the same, some chicken, rice and green vegetables. I eat rice all the time and switch to grilled chicken in case of weight gain. But honestly, my rice consumption hasn’t changed.
Cheat meals? Well, when I win, the next day I’ll have ice cream, biryani or Italian food that I love. But I don’t crave them all the time, so I don’t regret anything.
Rest and recovery are equally important for fitness, so I go for massages, swim or just relax.
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