Sports Science, the open secret to get Faster, Higher, Stronger

New Delhi: Every night before hitting the bed, Tokyo Olympics silver medallist Mirabai Chanu straps a heart rate monitor to her chest that records key cardiovascular data as the weightlifter’s battered body recovers. Next morning, she shares this bio feedback with her physiotherapist Rohit Chhabria. Ranging from the quality of sleep to resting heart rate to instances of sleep interruptions, Chhabria and national coach Vijay Sharma analyse the critical information before firming up her training plan for the day.
It’s a ceaseless cycle that helps the lifter train with the right intensity as she targets a second Olympic medal. In Chennai, table tennis ace Sharath Kamal, 42, has monitored his heart rate for over two decades, customising his training to continuous advancements in sports science. To say that Sharath’s longevity is a direct result of his scientific aptitude besides his redoubtable talent won’t be too far off the point.
At the Inspire Institute of Sports (IIS) in Bellary, sports science experts figured that the best way to get Olympic javelin champion Neeraj Chopra close to hitting the 90m mark is to increase his strength by “10-15 percent” this season. The 26-year-old thus has worked furiously in the gym – heavy enough to add distance to his throws but light enough to not compromise with his innate elasticity. The ‘bar speed’ is recorded and progress evaluated, leading to incremental millisecond gains that will hopefully translate into extra centimetres in competition.
In table tennis and archery, robots sparring with the world’s best is not an unusual sight. In the shooting range, stable jackets have increasingly played a key role in the rifle scores going up while experts work overtime to simulate match tension to prepare the athletes for that perfect shot under the crushing competition pressure.
At the core of the preparation and training regimen of these elite athletes are critical data sets that are analysed threadbare by a combination of human and machine intelligence before presenting the most potent way to elevate their game.
With parameters like VO2 max, lactates and electrolyte balance available at the click of a button, modern sport has long sped past the 10,000-hour rule. Real-time data collection has been the big differentiator, leading to advanced performance analysis and the development of predictive models. Safe to say, sport in this day and age is as much a function of the athletes’ physical and technical prowess as it is about attuning oneself to ever-evolving sports science.
The US swim team at the Paris Olympics is travelling with Professor Ken Ono. The 56-year-old mathematics professor at the University of Virginia uses mathematics to create 3D models of the athletes and comes up with suggestions that help the US swimmers shave off crucial milliseconds.
Ono, whose day job is studying problems in number theory, began working with the swimmers at the Emory University in Atlanta ten years back, then using basic accelerometers strapped to athletes. He now relies on cutting-edge sensors and high-definition underwater cameras to gauge the swimmer’s acceleration and the G-forces acting against them. The corrections could be as simple as altering diving depths, the way they anticipate a turn, or just the way they hold their head in the water.
“The level of involvement of science in modern sport, be it in training to mapping and optimising performances has changed dramatically over the past decade. The use of Artificial Technology and Virtual Reality will be the next big gamechanger,” feels Tom Brownlee, assistant professor in Applied Sport Sciences at University of Birmingham.
“Let’s imagine that you are a defender in a football match and are beaten by a winger. The defender can put on those VR goggles and replay the scenario to figure out the best way to deal with the situation. You can also use it for pattern recognition in sports that require a great deal of repetition, such as jumps and throws. It can be a great visualisation tool too,” Brownlee adds.
Indian ecosystem, by and large, is still coming to terms with the next-gen technology. If the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City first opened sports scientists to the possibilities of quicker sprint timings at altitude and birthed the idea of high-altitude training for distance runners, India embraced the idea only over the last decade. Boxer Amit Panghal thought his preparation was foolproof after a month-long camp in Shilaroo, 8000 feet above sea level. Problem is, boxers are beginning to lean on VR and Extended Reality (XD) to condition themselves for their opponents.
“In India, sports science is at a neo-natal stage. We are way behind the curve,” says Ramji Srinivasan, former strength and conditioning head coach with the men’s cricket team. “A lot of our sports federations haven’t even started recording basic physiological data of the athletes. We tend to copy training and diet plans before giving much thought to our body type and genetics. We need to Indianise our training,” he says.
“Data is the key,” agrees Samuel Pullinger, head of sports science at IIS. “Since we don’t have historical physiological or nutritional data to benchmark an athlete’s parameters, we regularly conduct strength assessments and musculoskeletal screening to track their levels. Ideally, the best technology needs to be applied right at the talent identification level.”
The Long Term Athlete Development Plan (LTAD) of sports bodies needs to integrate sports science, feels Srinivasan. “It has to be a systemic intervention. You can’t just wake up one day and expect athletes to be comfortable with the technology,” he says. A case in point is the resistance among a number of national-level shooters, which surfaced last year, to the methods and mechanisms of current high-performance coach Pierre Beauchamp. The shooters were loath to share their data and a lot of them saw little worth in the process.
“Why do we need to share how many hours we slept? What’s the colour of my urine got to do with my shooting?” a shooter told HT then. A lot of them still bought into the idea. One of them is coming home with two Olympic medals.