As a Gen X Indian citizen who grew up in India in the 1990s, my entire life was decided for me by my parents who in turn were influenced by their “society.” It was school, engineering entrance exam, an engineering degree, a job and then “settle down” with a family. At no point in my formative years was pursuit of sports a possible career option for me or my friends.
Somewhere along the way, I dropped off the tried-and-tested path, didn’t enroll in an engineering college and stumbled into recreational sports just before I turned 30. Now in my mid-40s, friends see me as an athlete because I play multiple sports, run long distances, work out and lack the tell-tale sign of our generation—an airbag-sized belly. To ensure these compliments do not go to my head, I asked experts and coaches who train some of India’s best track and field athletes to put me through their battery of tests and training to see where I actually stand.
Even before I hit the track or weights room came a reality check as a sports physiotherapist put me through tests to check mobility, flexibility, and strength of my limbs and joints. The FABER (flexibility, abduction, external rotation), Dorsiflexion Lunge and hip internal and external rotation tests assessed the mobility of hips, sacroiliac joints and ankles on each leg. I fared poorly on all three with a marked disparity between the right and left sides.
Next, I was tested for flexibility — a quality lacking in most long distance runners lazy about stretching. The physiotherapist performed the Hamstring 90/90, knee to chest and Modified Thomas tests that establish the flexibility of hamstrings, hip flexors, IT bands and rectus femoris.
While the Hamstring 90/90 and knee to chest scores for each leg were dismal as expected, I was surprised when the values for Modified Thomas fell within the range required of elite athletes.
However, the stark disparities between a recreational athlete and an elite one were laid bare by a battery of tests measuring peak force. I wasn’t even close to the minimum requirements for potential athletes, forget the elite ones. Overall, my peak force for hip flexors, adductors, abductors, hamstring and glutes was well below the bare minimum for athletes and less than half of the values that India’s second fastest 100m sprinter Animesh Kujur hit on the same tests. The worst part was the average 19% disparity between my stronger right side over the weaker left.
Elite athletes possess a balance and display almost equal power on both both right and left sides with a difference of under 5% treated as acceptable, explains Jayesh Bane lead physiotherapist at the Reliance Foundation Sports’ National Athletics Centre in Navi Mumbai. “All athletes undergo these same tests every five weeks when they are in training. Whenever a particular reading drops, we talk to the head coach, strength and conditioning coach and sports science head in order to tailor their training to fix the issue.” Bane is the man who addressed the niggles and minor problems that long jumper Ancy Sojan felt during her warm-up before her 6.88m jump leapfrogged Anju Bobby George’s national record of 6.83m that had stood for 22 years at the National Inter-State Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar last month. He is also the man who worked on long jumper Murali Sreeshankar and Kujur before their golds at the same meet.
Explaining my low scores on almost every test, Bane says the poor mobility and flexibility of my hamstrings, hips and sacroiliac joints make me a prime candidate for suffering hamstring and hip injuries. “It is also important that the hamstrings should be able to generate at least 80% of the peak force that your glutes generate. Anything less means other parts of your legs have to compensate every time you move. On the Hamstring 90/90 test, we need each and every track athlete to have a minimum flexibility of 180°. All other shortcomings can be addressed through focused exercises,” says Bane, giving me some hope.
“When they have good mobility, flexibility and peak force, they are able to recruit each and every muscle in their body to generate explosive speed out there on the track.”
I wanted to train with India’s top long distance runners because that’s what I thought I was good at. After all, I have been an official 2-hour pacer for the half marathon at Tata Mumbai Marathon four times in a row. I chatted with Ajith Markose, middle and long distance coach at the Reliance Foundation, who works with Sawan Barwal, India’s newest national record holder in the marathon. Since I readily blurted out all my personal records for 5km, 10km, half and full marathons, Markose smiled and praised me. Buoyed, I asked for Barwal’s workout that helps him go faster. “These boys run flat out for a whole minute and then rest for a minute,” starts Markose and I immediately interject showing (off) my familiarity with the workout, “Fartlek.” He patiently nods, “Yes, Fartlek. They run 400m in that minute and do 35 to 40 sets of it.” As someone who has come close to death after just 15 rounds of Fartlek, covering between 230m and 300m in the running minute, I quickly abandoned my idea of asking him for a chance to train with Barwal and other long distance runners, who run up to 200 km a week depending on their training phase. I run that distance in two months during peak training.
Now that I know first-hand what it takes to become an elite track and field athlete, watching from the stands is as close as I can get to that winning feeling. Or I can always sign up for another half marathon and feel smug at my above average finish time.