Not everyone is Virat Kohli: Sehwag’s take on fitness standards and personalized training programs
Virender Sehwag has made a controversial claim as the Indian team is sidelined with injury. India, led by Virat Kohli, will be without Jasprit Bumrah and Shreyas Iyer for the ODI series against Australia. What do the best drummer Shreyas Iyer and the fastest Jasprit Bumrah have in common? India’s two key players are set to miss most of the 2023 season due to recurring personal back pain. Iyer will miss the upcoming Australian series with a recurring back problem, but speed demon Bumrah recently underwent surgery and will miss six months.
Great cricketer Virender Sehwag has candidly said that weightlifting has no place in cricket and Indian players often get injured. The standout fly-half and former India captain has claimed that Indian players are more injury prone due to the training regimen. Sehwag boldly claims that cricketing greats Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh have hardly experienced such setbacks in their illustrious careers. It came at a time when Rohit Sharma’s Indian team were plagued with back and hamstring problems.
“There is no place for weightlifting in cricket. Instead, you should do the exercises that improve your game. Weightlifting will give you strength, but will also increase stiffness and soreness. In our days, Aakash Chopra, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, MS Dhoni, or Yuvraj Singh, nobody were ruled out due to back, hamstring, or quadricep injuries,” Sehwag said on TRS Clips.”
Sehwag further claimed that Basu used former Indian performance coach Shanker to develop a unified training regimen for all Indian athletes. Asked about his early interactions with Ravichandran Ashwin and then playing for the Punjab Kings (PBKS), Sehwag said the famous all-around player just got into the habit of using clean and jerk because he was once popular.
“Basu Shanker was with the Indian team for a lot of years, and he made the same programs for all players. Why should there be the same program for Ravichandran Ashwin and Virat Kohli? When Ashwin was with the Kings XI Punjab, he told me he was doing clean-and-jerk workouts because it was in trend. Athletes train from childhood for clean and jerk and still get injured. Imagine a cricketer starting when he’s over 30 years old. Both Ashwin and Axar had problems with their knees because of this workout,” Sehwag said.
Former India opener Sehwag, who is renowned for his aggressive hitting style in all game formats, said that players didn’t encourage weight training when he was competing. Virat Kohli, who is frequently credited with revolutionising the physical standards of the Indian squad, was also the subject of an odd revelation from the former Indian captain. “We didn’t do any weight training in our days, but we were still able to play cricket all day. This could be Virat Kohli’s funda. But not everyone is Virat Kohli. You need to prepare a training program based on your own body,” the former Indian opener concluded.
