Badminton Queen of India Saina Nehwal (11 page)

There’s a a lot to learn about diet and fitness plans from athletes like Saina, especially because they are not all that different from us in terms of upbringing and food habits. It is true that the international stage is ruled by athletes from nations with diverse dietary and fitness outlooks.

Most of the Indian athletes have had childhoods and opportunities similar to normal individuals. Hence, when someone like Saina comes along and competes on a world stage, it is crucial to get tips and incorporate them into daily lives.

There are many things that make Saina a super fit, high energy badminton star who has enjoyed an injury free career since she started playing.

According to Saina Nehwal, the badminton fitness completely depends on the sum total of a player’s body. One of the most essential ingredients is to remain free from any pains and ailments. Saina feels that she is really lucky in this respect. She also firmly believes in leading a happy, cheerful life. If it is about wininig a game, fitness is an integral part of her strategy.

To maintain apt badminton fitness, Siana performs a routine of exercises and practices schedules as scheduled by her coaches and physiotherapists. Her fitness routine comprises of endurance, agility and skill exercises. The girl also performs a lot of weights. Running is really important. Her daily routine includes sprint, jump and hop for about 65 minutes in a day.

This is not all. She feels that it is crucial to have breaks during severe fitness routine. Since, badminton is an intense sport Saina makes it a point to rest in between (about one week) depending on her schedule.

Just as any game, badminton demands mental fitness from a player. Saina too believes in maintaining a perfect mental fitness in order to ensure maximum out of a game. According to this skilled champion and an Olympic winner, mental fitness is extremely important in any kind of competitive sport. Hence, she performs yoga along with the audio routine recorded in her phone for at least two sessions in a day. She thinks that only a mentally fit person can fight for every point and square inch of court space.

When it comes to maintaining a dietary routine, Saina is very particular about what she should do. Hence, it is all about consuming very less quanitities of food thrice a day. Being a badminton player, she relies mainly on loads of juices, seasonal fruits, few vitamins and calcium substitutes and lots of milk and curd.

Though she was born into a vegetarian home, once she embarked on her chosen career, the girl started eating meat. She knew that she was going out of the family tradition and does not regret it. She feels that players need a lot of strength and the only way to get it is through eating meat. Hence, Sain now eats a lot of chicken and believes it has helped her to gain strength. Saina has also given up junk food.

Saina needs to maintain a high level of fitness while training for badminton. She would like to give her fitness level and training skills credit to her coaches and physiotherapists who know how to make her work that extra bit.

She religiously follows the tips and suggestions put forward by her coaches. And that’s what keeps her going.

Injuries are a part of a sports person’s life. Right from Sachin Tendulkar to Steffi Graph and Sania Mirza, everyone has had it. But Saina Nehwal considers herself lucky. In case of this skilled badminton champion, injuries haven’t been a very vital part of her career as yet.

What is the secret?

According to Saina, the secret lies in her strong and fit genes. Both her parents have been former state badminton champions of Haryana and have always believed in leading a fit and healthy life. Her basics have always been good and she has had professional coaches training from a young age. Also, she play only singles which helps a lot, according to the world champion.

Typically, her weekly routine includes 2-4 sessions of strength training, 3-6 sessions of endurance and 6-8 sessions of agility and moderate running as part of endurance training. As part of her strength training routine she does dumbbell pullovers, rowing exercises, military press for shoulders, heel raises for calf muscles and lat pull downs, amongst others. Her agility training is a customised routine including speedy bursts of running along with lunges, ab crunches, etc.

Saina think that there’s no life without fitness. Her take on exercising and maintaining fitness is that regardless of one’s age, it is crucial to exercise. It is vital for each and every individual to exercise for at least 30 minutes in a day. It will keep one fresh through the day and also gives one the strength to fight off illnesses. Another tip is to follow a disciplined lifestyle. Discipline is extremely necessary to incorporate into life especially if the priority is to lead a fit and healthy life.

A secret that has always kept Saina going is discipline. She follows discipline religiously. Unlike other teenagers, Saina doesn’t get to sleep in, watch movies or hang out with friends. Her daily routine (without fail) includes getting up at 6 am everyday, 6 times a week and practices. Much of her success has come from just great discipline. Discipline is something most people lack in their diets and exercise routines. For instance, most people know eating a certain thing is bad for them but they would still eat it, and the same goes for exercise. Discipline is necessary to incorporate into life especially to stay fit.

Saina is a world-class athelete. And maintaining an injury free career is an amazing achievement a player of her genre can make. Her dedication to game is what the world sees. But there is a lot more the player has to indulge in. Be it maintaining a steady diet, excellent stamina, fitness or high energy level, Saina has done it all. She knows what’s required and expected from her and works accordingly.

The dedicated girl understands that the entire country has high hopes from her. She would never let her fans and country down.

What Makes Saina Nehwal
Super Saina and a Winner?

Saina Nehwal, one of the Top 5 badminton players of the world today and winner of the Khel Ratna Award, the country’s highest sporting honour is an icon for youth.

So, what is it that makes Saina Nehwal a super success? What are Saina Nehwal’s secrets of success? What makes people call her ‘Super Saina’?

Well, there are many things that make Saina Nehwal what she is today. Researches and studies have proved that most successful people in this world depend on habits to acquire success. Success is attracted by the dedication and change within the individual.

Here are some habits that have proved effective among successful people across the globe and our own Saina Nehwal.

Proactive

It is said that proactive people are driven by values independent of the surrounding environment. These are also independent of how people treat them. Proactive individuals make use of their resourcefulness and initiative to find solutions within their area of influence and control. They don’t believe in reporting problems and waiting for someone else to solve them.

What about Saina Nehwal? Is she proactive? Yes. Saina Nehwal hails from a middle-class family in Haryana. Her father Dr. Harvir Singh is a scientist with the Directorate Oil Seeds research at Hyderabad. Her mother was a badminton player. Dr. Singh was also a skilled player. Both were former state champions in Haryana. Badminton was in her blood. She took to the game at an early age in life. However, potential for playing the game is one thing and realizing it as a goal is another. One needs to take it forward. The journey is tough. Dr. Singh spent over half of the monthly salary on Saina’s badminton requirements. Everything from rackets, shuttles, and shoes were of high quality and expensive.

This is not all. Saina had to travel over 20 km everyday and reach the stadium at 6 am in the morning to attend 2 hour training. She had to continue the long journey back home, and then travel again to attend school. Life must have been really tough for this poor little girl. The requirements for badminton reached a level where her father had to withdraw money from Provident Fund savings. The money was contributed to finance her training. Apart from this, she was also under the risk of lagging behind at school.

Considering all of the above stated factors, Saina and her parents accepted all this as beyond their means. They were satisfied with National level success Saina had achieved in her early life. Her family did not let go of the dream of their daughter making it big one day.

Imagine the Ultimate

It is important to start with the end in mind. Saina and her family nurtured a dream. The dream was to see Saina climb the pinnacle of success in the field of badminton. They never let go of the dream. For each tournament, Saina holds on to her dream of winning an Olympics medal. All her eyes are always on winning tournaments. She kept her eyes on her goal and world rankings just followed.

Practise and Focus

Of course, nothing is possible without practise and focus. And this is apparently what Saina Nehwal practices. Experts feel that these elements have undoubtedly been the single-most important reason for her success.

Did you know apart from the training that she does at the P Gopichand academy, she also further spends additional time on work-outs and fitness at home, as also on meditation? Well, success does not come easy and Saina Nehwal is the perfect example for this saying.

Saina Nehwal would also like to hang out with friends, spend time on movies, have fun & parties. But does she? In one of the interviews, her father said, “She did not do any of this for 7 straight years, especially those early initial years. Her entire concentration was towards practise and winning tournaments.”

Of course, Saina Nehwal now has recently gone ahead and had a trendy makeover recently and has started appearing in a few ads also, but as long as she still sticks to the ‘Put first things first’ policy, she should keep achieving fairly well.

Eat, Drink, Think, and Sleep Victory

Victory is not possible if don’t think about it or dream it. In fact, it should be one thing in your mind that inspires you to play. You need to focus on a diet that helps you get victory. The practice sessions should be targeted towards achieving maximum victories. When you have one thing in mind and your actions are towards the direction of your goal, success is surely yours!

Understanding Win-Win Situations and working on them!

When Saina Nehwal could not attend a super series tournament, due to nursing an injury, and the organizers still wanted her to come and talk to the media, a win-win situation such as video conferencing with the media was proposed.

Sportspersons also need to act strategically. In the above case, it was more of a win-win seeking mutually beneficial agreements. As regards win-win relationships, Saina Nehwal has worked with several coaches, prior to Gopichand also, and it must have surely been a mutually beneficial relationship for them. Saina focussed on developing her game whereas the coaches getting their best student ever.

Understand and Then be Understood

A sportsperson should understand and be understood. Over the years, Saina’s various interviews have reflected her concern for the second-rung badminton players who still have to struggle hard to keep going towards success. Be it Sania Mirza or Cricket or badminton in India, her views are clear enough, and can such clear views come without a clear understanding? The trait has helped Saina to be in the limelight for good reasons and in an acceptable way.

Connect Well

Saina Nehwal is a super badminton star. P Gopichand is a super badminton coach. The connection between the two of them, has led to success for both. The year that Saina won the prestigious Arjuna award for best sportsperson, also saw P Gopichand winning the equally prestigious Dronacharya award for best coach. This is how a well established, amicable and strong connection works.

Sharpen your Skills

It is crucial to take out ample time to sharpen skills. This is easy if you focus on working for physical, mental, social/emotional and spiritual dimension renewal and establishing a perfect balance between these dimensions. Sometimes, you need to look beyond the apparent. Apart from honing existing skills, one should also focus on various things that make up for a sportsperson’s recognition and so called ‘star value’.

When Saina Nehwal has opted out of tournaments due to nursing any injury (this is the time when she cannot practice badminton also), she has tried out different things, be it photo shoots, advertisements, and public appearances. Here, she concentrated on sharpening her social skills, meet necessary requirements and try and achieve a fuller work-life balance.

And when it comes to practising badminton, can anyone doubt that Saina Nehwal does not sharpen her skills? Her results on the badminton court are ample proof.