New Indian Express: Indian hockey team: The pain and gain story you must know about

By Swaroop Swaminathan

Deplorable: adjective.

Meaning: Deserving strong condemnation; completely unacceptable; shockingly bad in quality.

That is the exact word Michael Nobbs, former coach of the men’s hockey national team, uses to describe the fitness methods and nutrition of the team when he saw them for the first time. “Deplorable,” he says to Express.

“Absolutely no science-based testing and methodology in training.” It’s a far cry from now — you could make a case for the Indian team being one of the fittest now. But that wasn’t the case when Nobbs was handed the reins in June 2011. “It took quite some time to implement a nutrition plan. There were and still are a number of vegetarians, and this is an issue as sustained performance requires a very strict set of nutritional requirements for peak performance. Most diets had to be supplemented with extra vitamins to counter the effects of poor nutrition,” he remembers.

All that changed thanks to two big decisions Nobbs took within a year of taking charge. He brought along David John, formerly a visiting staff at the MRF Pace Academy, to work on training and fitness. One of David’s first port of call was to radically alter the players’ diets, which included promoting black coffee as a beverage rather than lassi, the preferred choice of drink. “We didn’t ask anybody to switch, but when we showed them the benefits of using coffee to metabolise glucose and carbohydrates, most of the team changed and immediately felt a difference in their performance. But, there were no unwritten rules. These are just science-based methods.”

In the 12 months from June 2011, the squad improved their overall physique so much that then skipper Bharat Chettri revealed that the team had plans for a bizarre ‘who had the best abs’ competition among the 16 travelling to London.

“There indeed is a competition within the team to build the best physique. If we manage to win a medal in London, we would celebrate by flashing 16 six-pack abs,” he had said during the team’s pre-departure ceremony.

India’s disappointing performances at London put paid to those plans, but Nobbs was already making the squad fitter than before. Few months after David left, he played a role in hiring Jason Conrath, a former Mr Australia. He continued the same fitness programmes that were instituted by David, and bio-mechanics started to play a very important role.

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The team are posing for an array of photographers after finishing their final training session before heading out to Rio. Suddenly, PR Sreejesh, the skipper, breaks out into what looks like an impromptu rendition of ‘Kabali da’. Rajinikanth’s movie had hit Indian screens hours earlier and Sreejesh was trying to get the team going. A few more players join in before Roelant Oltmans, the coach, starts copying his skipper. It was not even remotely close to the actual thing, but nobody cared. The mood was that of one big, happy family trying for a medal at the Games for the first time in 36 years.

But, make no mistake. The smiles weren’t manufactured. This is a team that has a genuine chance of ending more than three decades of hurt. They won an FIH medal for the first time in 33 years (World League Final) before claiming silver in the Champions Trophy for the first time in their history. And the overall system has become much more sophisticated as Adithya Chakravarty, the main video analyst for the men’s team, says. “Definitely the team has become much fitter as compared to 2014.” How?

“So, the strength and conditioning coach is hooked up with the heart-rate monitors of all players during training and tournaments. He records numbers generated by players so as to have a better understanding of the threshold level of each and every player. That threshold has gone up.” Those numbers cannot be dismissed out of hand as they aid the coaches when it comes to substitutions. “As and when players reach that threshold level, he conveys the information to the head coach who can then send in fresher players.”

Another pleasing aspect about the modern Indian side is that they have faced all Rio-bound teams at least once since the last week of November. They play Ireland (once), Germany (twice), Argentina (twice), Netherlands (twice) and Canada (once) in the group stages. Not just that. They have also faced all potential knockout opponents bar hosts Brazil: Australia (four times, seven if you want to include the three-Test series last November), Belgium (twice), Spain (thrice), New Zealand (twice) and Great Britain (twice). Why is this important? Chakravarty explains. “Most of my recent work has been focused around data gathering. For example: At the Six Nations tournament in Valencia, when I gathered information about opponents, it was more about data collection. So that at the Olympics, we will have much more data about all the teams we could be facing.”

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There is a myth that exists around the training camp in Bengaluru: tea is banned for players. While nobody really knows how that came about, only one drink is entertained near the astroturf, the players’ protein shakes.

Matt Eyles, scientific advisor (Strength and Conditioning) of the team, is the one who makes it, and skipping that drink is a no go area. “I keep the supplementation pretty simple,” he says. “After each and every session, they have a protein shake. I might give certain players different variants of it because of their body types. The bigger guys might have slightly less carbohydrates. We have some incredibly lean guys. For them, the shake will have more carbs because they really need to refuel.”

That is just one part of Eyles’ job. He has access to all the players’ sleep hours and sleep quality, but fitness is one of his primary domains. “Our strength numbers have gone up, if you look at the total load. It’s hard to give a specific figure because everyone registers different numbers owing to their make up. For example: Raghu (VR Raghunath) is just stronger than Nikkin (Thimmaiah) because he is a bigger boy. But, both of their numbers have gone up. It’s same with things like yo-yo tests (a form of speed and endurance testing mechanism). Our average from 12 months ago has increased by over a full level.”

As with everything else associated with Indian hockey, training and fitness is one thing. Having the right technique is a completely different ball game. India were one of the fitter sides in 2012, but other factors let the team down. “We initially had an older group of players quite set in their ways,” Nobbs points out. “They had very little exposure to modern, science-based training, and had difficulty playing against the new methods adopted by top teams. An example was the very basic skill of trapping. Germany, who had won gold, mistrapped 52 balls in the entire Olympics. India mistrapped 172.”

Nobbs’ prediction for where the team will end is interesting in itself, because he is not afraid to say what could happen four years down the line. “The junior group under Harendra Singh is an even more impressive group, and it will form the basis of a medal-winning team in 2020. This group in Rio should finish around the middle of the table (4-6), but a little lady luck and fortune could smile on them.”