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Canvas - Sports
Variety - Health
Sporting fitness
Sravanthi Challapalli
Vital aspects of healthcare, fitness and nutrition are often ignored or neglected by
sportspersons in India, at a huge cost.
It's not lucrative but immensely satisfying. It's exciting, yet frustrating. Strange, how this
description of sports, in India at least, applies equally well to those who have made advising
sportspeople their calling.
Most of them are sportspersons themselves. As Dr Kannan Pugazhendi, one of the very few
sports medicine specialists in the country, says, "I wanted to combine sports and medicine, I
was passionate about both." An athlete himself, he found the going difficult when he started
out as there was not much to go by, but a Masters degree from Australia, that he picked up
recently in the subject, revealed how much of a challenge he had taken up. The medical officer
at Chennai's YMCA College of Physical Education has also started a Fitness Foundation
Academy, of which he is the Director.
"Sports medicine is not just about an injury, it encompasses physiology, psychology,
biomechanics, pharmacology, biophysics ... it's an expanding field," says Kannan. It's not just
about injuries being set right, it's about rehabilitation which demands a different set of skills.
"It is a very difficult requirement of sport which has to be studied in depth," he adds.
Kannan, who has been involved with the YMCA from 1985, and has been working there for the
past 11 years, didn't begin charging his patients until last year and even then, only those who
could afford to pay. This money goes into a fund for the Academy. He mentions the case of
athletes who will run despite their injuries. The Academy aspires to cater to sportspeople who
cannot normally afford such specialised treatment. The doctor has also trained a team of
therapists who can take over when he is not around. Alternative medicine, such as
acupuncture, is used too.
In the west, this is a billion dollar industry. However, in India, hospitals hardly have fitness or
rehabilitation centres attached to them. It would be good if they did as it will mean more
employment for trainers, dieticians and others in the field, says Kannan, adding that he
expects Chennai to initiate something on these lines soon.
But what is it that a sports doctor can do that an ordinary doctor can't? Radha, a master
trainer with Reebok and a National Veterans Athletics champion, says, "A physician will be able
to relieve pain, but not tell me how much weight to lift, how far to run, or how to prepare for
the next competition."
The things that could go wrong range from muscle sprains to injuries to problems caused by
wrong footwear, `mal-rehabilitation', lack of on-field management and more. Compounding all
this is the absence of psychological training, which is almost a cultural defect.
Dr Shrinivas, a Chennai-based sports psychologist, says the most common problem with his
patients is anxiety about their performance. There is much concentration on technique and
physical training, nothing whatsoever on psychology. "After a few years, this behaviour
becomes a habit and can only be modified, not changed," he says, emphasising the need to
incorporate psychological discipline into the training sessions from a young age. His experience
has proved how years of practice don't necessarily stand one in good stead, be it ordinary
athletes or those pursuing elitist sports like tennis and golf. "The quality of work is bad, and
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2. they just crumble at the international level," he adds.
"Very interesting" is how the psychologist describes his work, but laments that parents and
coaches alike give this aspect importance only when a problem crops up. It is necessary to
have performance enhancement programmes, which deal with every aspect of the game and
aid the sportsperson to improve at the right time at the right age. Shrinivas says that he's also
done some pioneering work in developing training techniques.
As for the brawn to go with the brain, here's what a prominent nutritionist has to say. Dr
Varsha, a Chennai-based specialist in renal, paediatric and performance nutrition, says each
sport has its own requirement. She finds that sportspeople don't have any scientific knowledge
about how the body works, but harbour a lot of myths about what they should eat and not.
And this ignorance is common to all economic strata. "It's funny how a mother hesitates to
feed her child a mosambiciting cold as an excuse but wouldn't mind paying through her nose
for it for a fancy-named extract of the same," she laughs, responding to a query on
supplements. There is nothing in those that ordinary food doesn't have, she adds.
But a major problem faced in India by all these sports specialists is the paucity of information
and lack of benchmarks, which will help them practice their profession better. Their experience
with athletes, tennis players, swimmers, cricketers and other sportspersons, as well as their
exposure to teams abroad, causes much frustration and envy. All healthy, because it only
hardens their resolve to keep ploughing through, and helping their wards go for the gold.
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