There’s a lot of negativity and false information everywhere in terms of foods and supplements to keep the health and immunity up. Especially in athletes who have to keep their stamina, immunity, strength, up, throughout the year.
The lack of physical training has made life in quarantine a little more than challenging for athletes. It is very essential to keep their eating habits appropriate and not fall prey to unhealthy eating patterns in off season, which can affect their performance negatively later.
Many athletes are in confusion about the way to maintain their health realizing their diet periodization, workout & practice schedules, games have gone for a toss. But, taking this time-off seriously would be wise for getting ready for the next season, by training & eating right for:
a) Maintaining and keeping the basic immunity up,
b) Maintaining their healthy muscle weight and prevent fat gain, that will help in recovery,
gain back strength and reduce the injury risk or help in rehab.
c) Adopting good eating habits, indoor workout habits and work on overall well-being.
Now, with the decrease of training volume also comes a decrease in caloric intake. The coronavirus quarantine, emotional and stress eating is very common for all. But I believe this is a test for all of us for self controlling in terms of binge unhealthy eating. This practice however will result in fast fat-weight gain as you over-consume unwanted calories. Athlete’s require an off-season nutrition plans with right choices of food as per the goals by keeping moderate carbohydrate & fat intake, high in protein, fibre, antioxidant & water intake for maintaining immunity and body composition. If body weight is a concern, try to maintain good weight range
or to get into better shape, maintain your muscle mass or increase your muscle mass (who are aiming to gain weight), for the next season.
This is a good time to effectively increase lean body mass and hence strength and stamina, by keeping the workout and diet in sync with each other which is essential for repairing physically and mentally. As we progress from off season into pre-season, it’s important to match what you
eat during training, practices & match days.
Top two areas to work on when going into off season:
1. Recovery needs – this includes recovering from the training session.
2. A decrease in energy expenditure – this is particularly important right now as many athletes do not have access to training facilities or maybe in quarantine.
The Basic rules apply,
DO’S:
-Keep a fixed nutrient-rich quarantine diet plan, by including all food group rich in proteins, antioxidants, moderate carbs & low fat. Keep hydrating enough.
-Keep fixed workout rituals and sleep patterns.
-Set daily goals in terms of your work, training, shadow practicing to avoid mental stress and emotional eating.
-Maintain a good basic hygiene and have home cooked food to avoid any type of infections.
-Try taking up mind relaxing and self-care activities like reading, yoga, meditation, etc.
DONT’S
– Do not binge or avoid sugary, oily, junk foods, packaged foods during your quarantine which will lead to fat gain.
– Avoid smoking, alcohol which might increase your body fat, lower your immunity, recovery
and breathing patterns.
-Avoid emotional eating and late night sleeping patterns
Quick tips for recovery and performance in off season:
-If your training is increasing, start adding in carbs sources at times leading up to and post- training.
-If your training is decreasing in volume and/or intensity, follow the recommendations for reducing overall energy intake while keeping protein sources constant.
-Pre training, consume a quick carbohydrate rich food for good energy flow.-If your training is less than 45 minutes, just drink water during the event.
If it involves more than 45 minutes, consider electrolytes drinks.
– Post training, drink enough water.Next, take a quick protein and carbs source intake to get to your muscle as quickly as possible to help in repairing muscles.
-Consider consulting a Sports Nutritionist for some goal oriented diet plans suggesting foods and safe supplements suggestion (brands and dosages) required for recovery and immunity.
I believe there’s not one diet plan that suits all. The calorie requirements changes from person to person in terms of their body goals, nutrient deficiencies, training schedules, intensities, food allergies, availability, eating patterns, etc and so the diet plan should be made customized as per
the athlete’s goals. So consider consulting a certified Sports Nutritionist who can help you guide better.
Each one of us have a human side and it gets demonstrated in trying & difficult times too. One such move was demonstrated by Suraj Samat who is an MCA member as well as the committee member of DSC (District Sports Club) BKC.
DSC BKC which is at the heart of city is also very close to the red zone Dharavi which has become the hotspot of coronavirus cases in Mumbai. With rising number of patients everyday, Suraj & his team at DSC were the first ones to proactively respond to address this issue. They wasted no time in first allowing the government to utilize their infrastructure for the patients and then immediately converting the infra in to a full 300 beds set up for the patients.
Apart from lending its space to the quarantined patients , DSC BKC is also conducting free yoga sessions for them. Apart from this, the Club has also offered 1000 masks, 96 sanitizer bottles of 500 ml each and gloves to the BMC workers.
From organizing cricket tournaments to providing support during this pandemic, MCA Member Suraj Samat has been at the forefront in helping the community in whatever capacity he can. Just few months back, he had organized Samat T20 Cup for Mumbai Club Cricketers which proved to be a big platform for budding cricketers. The tournament had record prize money which was never heard before in local cricket. Samat Cup went on to become one of the biggest professionally organized T20 Club Cricket tournaments in Mumbai.
Here are few snaps from the DSC premises,
Aslam Shaikh, a very promising & experienced A Div Cricketer from Mumbai- an all rounder and a big hearted man is going through tough times with his health issues. He is suffering from vein damage in his body which has made his arms and legs immobile (no movement). Few years back he had injured himself while playing in a Cricket Tournament which has now become a serious complication for his health and life.
His friends and colleagues have decided to help him with some amount of contribution for his treatment. Even though, Aslam has refused on this act, his mates insisted him to accept as a token of love and support. If anyone from the Cricket Fraternity wishes to help Aslam, they can contribute some amount to his wife Mr’s Shaikh’s bank account.
If anyone wishes to contribute through Cricketgraph, they can swipe up the story for next 24 hrs. We wish he achieves a speedy recovery and comes back even stronger.
The Link Below to Support Aslam:
“Let’s Support Aslam Shaikh” – A Div Cricketer Suffering severe Health Complications
I believe fitness is very essential for almost every level of cricketer & studies have proved that cricketer are also prone to various types of injuries like any other field of sport.
The sport of cricket is challenged by three formats of the game. Each format
varying workload demands. Cricket is one such sport which test game skill, mental strength, stamina and physical endurance as well. Fast bowlers have greater overall match play demands than any other role in game. The overall aim of this blog was to identify that cricketer needs.
When we talk about exercise it is always the best option to start with getting
basic right what many cricketer neglect, is the fact that this speed up too much in their training program by lifting heavy but at the same cost of compromising the exercise technique. There is a physical demand on a cricketer’s body that requires the right strengthening and conditioning as a batsman, you are using your whole body to perform a fluid movement.
For batting, you rely upon the muscles in your back, shoulders and biceps. You’re also engaging your core muscles to help turn the body as you swing the bat. Fast bowling is another full body movement. Fast bowling workload has good relationship with injury and performance workload.
WORKLOAD
Workload monitoring can play an important role in preventing over training syndrome and management of unwanted amounts of fatigue. Both generic and sport-specific measures of workloads are used in sport. Workloads can be regarded as external and internal. External load comprises the ‘work’ performed in a physical task, while internal load describes the physiological or psychological response (i.e. ‘strain’) of the athlete to the external work performed. (weekly load x monotony = strain}
Workload monitoring in athlete established for injury reduction and game
performances. The fitness and fatigue from training and competition directly affect to athlete performance understanding acute and chronic fatigue is vital in athlete management performance outcome from training are directly related to the magnitude of the both fitness and fatigue responses to a given workload.
Fast bowler at greater risk of injury than their methods and nature of injuries sustained to involve intensive rehabilitation period. Fast bowlers injury profile is most similar to a football player and baseball pitcher.
TYPES OF INJURIES:
1. Direct injury { impact with Cricket Ball, Bat and Ground}
2. Indirect injury {due to repetitive stress}
GENERAL RULES FOR THREE TRAINING PHASES:
The most commonly indirect injured body parts are lower back, feet, ankle and ligaments {stronger bones, muscles, ligaments and tendon reduce risk of injury}
The basic things to remember before starting training is there is three periods {preparation, competition, transition) and three phases (general and specific, pre and competitive, Trans 1 and Trans 2). General rules for three training phases
1. Divided in 3 modes {High intensity, Mod intensity, High volume}
The human body responds to training in particular ways, Most of the methods depend upon measuring the quantity of training (volume) and quality/difficulty of training (intensity).
High intensity- The training focuses on performing quality weight training
repetitions to the point of momentary muscular failure, Training has a positive immediate effect (within 3 weeks) upon improving performance.
Mod intensity- Moderate intensity is anything that gets your heart rate up to 50-60 percent higher than its rate when you are rest.
High volume- High volume means more reps and sets, training has a delayed or longer-term training effect
2. Vary sessions (type, mode, volume, intensity) no same in week
3. In season perform lighter recovery session first in the week, before hard
training.
4. Skill tactical training is performed with endurance to challenge skill and
decision making ability in fatigue state
5. Fitness – fatigue= performance
6. Fitness is the positive result of the training, Fatigue is the negative result of training.
Specificity
A complete system of athletic development that focuses on training the athlete body in a manner that it is specific to their respective sport. These gain are archived by making sure all functional movement patterns are where they need to be.
“There is reason why a sprinter can’t run a marathon and marathon
runner can’t run a sprint. They certainly don’t train a same. Every
kind of sport is different, and you need to think about specific needs”
Recovery
Recovery aims to restore physiological and psychological processes.
Recovery is increasingly important to the high performance athlete in
a bid to reduce fatigue and enhance performance. Adequate recovery
is required for improve athlete performance and minimize the like
wood of over training syndrome. Over training syndrome is the characterized not only by a reduction in athlete performance But also
compromised neuromuscular, hormonal and biomechanical status.
Some of the most popular recovery methods for athlete.
1. Sleep
Getting quality sleep is more than getting quantity sleep, which means
sleep must have minimal disturbance. Athlete who sleep on average <8 hours per night have greater risk of being injured than those who sleep & 8 hours.
2. Nutrition & Supplement
Proper nutrition and supplements is important to improve recovery.
Getting in the right nutrients after exercise can help you to rebuild your
muscle.
3. Massage
Massage can be used for muscle recovery and rehabilitation of injuries.
Dynamic compression helps to improve circulation of blood, better
circulation means better oxygen supply to the muscle and reproving
metabolic waste product from muscle.
4. Active recovery
Commonly used form of post exercise recovery. The role of active recovery
reducing muscle soreness after exercise is important factor for athlete.
Various modalities of activity used {swimming, jogging, cycling}
5. Passive recovery
Passive recovery is the easiest & cheapest form of recovery. Sometimes
passive rest is the best way to help an athlete recovery, sometimes it is not.
Passive rest also include meditation, relaxing listening to music, flotation,
etc. Regeneration of mind can help recovery of body.
From stitching big partnerships with Sachin Tendulkar to thrashing Shane Warne to leading the India U19 World Cup Team, Amit Pagnis has seen as well as experienced the golden phase of cricket in his heydays. What’s more his journey does not end there, Amit Pagnis went on to score over 5000+ first class runs before finally hanging up his boots in 2008.
But as we say, once a cricketer, always a cricketer and it’s difficult to keep such personalities away from the game. Amit now serves as the Head Batting Coach for all age groups at the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA Academy) where he shares his valuable experience with the youngsters.
Cricketgraph got an opportunity to interact with Amit Pagnis where he shared all the memories of his U19 World Cup Days which had the likes of Virender Sehwag , Mohammad Kaif and Harbhajan Singh playing under him. Amit also shared about his partnerships with Sachin to how he took on the legendary Shane Warne.
In the full interview he also courteously answers all the questions asked by our Community.
This lockdown has taught us many things which have been nothing but positive. Many of us have also realized that lockdown can be a good opportunity to cover up those pending things which we did not have time for earlier. Even amongst the cricketers, most of the players are enrolling in some or the other online courses which ranges from Cricket Workshops to Marketing to make the most of their idle time.
These few months of no cricket has been a loss for the young aspiring cricketers as they have lost a crucial season from their career. However, with the rise of social media and technology, many academies and coaches are trying to keep the players in sync with their game through online coaching.
Hence, we at Cricketgraph have come up with an initiative for U12 to U23 Age Group (Boys & Girls) with a 3 Day Online Workshop. The players will get a chance to interact with Mumbai U19 Strength & Conditioning Coach to experienced Cricketers of Mumbai. The students will also recieve guidance on the do’s and don’t’s, the pathway to become a successful cricketer.
The workshop will focus on mental skills & game observation. The other key highlights will be understanding the concept of Strength & Conditioning in Cricket, develop performance analysis to improve session by session in a match. This is also a very relevant opportunity for the parents as well as for for girls who want to or who are pursuing Cricket.
The Online Session will be of 1.5hrs daily conducted over Zoom. The dates for this workshop have been set at 14th, 15th & 16th of May, 2020. The timings will be communicated to all the participants over the mail.
Click on the link to register:
Slow and steady wins the race and Aakarshit Gomel is one such example who does justice to this phrase. Gomel kept his calm on and off the field for quite some years before he finally donned the Mumbai Cap this year in Ranji Trophy. Solid technique and patience have been his forte right since his early years. He displayed his perseverance at the age of 9 itself when he scored 48 off 356 balls in U13 CPCC tournament. An innings which helped his team survive tough sessions and win the game on Quotient.
Many of his peers felt his Ranji Trophy Debut was long overdue and many people from the Cricket community adore his style of solid batting. Yes we are talking about the promising Aakarshit Gomel who reposed everyone’s faith by hammering a hundred on his Ranji Trophy Debut for Mumbai, the kind of start which many cricketers dream of.
In a candid conversation with Cricketgraph powered by Hell Energy , Aakarshit shares about his cricket journey so far. He also shares how he felt when he donned that Mumbai Cap which he received from Suryakumar Yadav. Gomel further shared the kind of hardwork & regimen one has to go through to become a first class cricketer. In the video interview, he also talks about his nets sessions with Jasprit Bumrah & Hardik Pandya while answers a range of community questions.
Life has its own sweet tales and legendary actor Irrfan Khan who passed away recently has certainly left behind quite a few tales about his inspiring journey.
Not many know that Irrfan Khan who has a career spanning over 3 decades in Global Cinema with more than 74 films wanted to become a cricketer. The Oscar Winning Actor was about to represent his state team in Ranji Trophy until he faced some financial hurdles in the U23 Age Group.
Irrfan was a promising all-rounder and probably the youngest too in his Jaipur side, he was also selected in the U23 Col CK Nayadu Trophy which is considered to be the first step towards getting a place in the First Class Team. However, he felt short of Rs 600 which was required at that time to travel from Jaipur to Ajmer to make it into the U23 side.
The lack of funds eventually led his cricket career to a premature end. His sister eventually arranged Rs 300/- and got him admitted to National School of Drama (acting and arts being his 2nd love). The loss of Cricket World became a gain for Indian Cinema as he thrived as an actor across award winning films in his career spanning 30 years.
Excerpts from Irrfan “I played cricket. I wanted to become a cricketer. I was an all-rounder and the youngest one in my team in Jaipur. I wanted to make a career out of it. I was selected for the CK Nayudu tournament I think and then I needed money and didn’t know who to ask. That day I decided I cannot pursue it. I couldn’t have asked for Rs 600 at that time,” Khan had revealed to Telegraph India, in an interview.
Irrfan eventually believed that Cricket has loads of expectations and the competition is intense while acting is an open sea which has no limits. “An artist can keep expressing through his work” the words of Irrfan which completely does justice to his skills.
The current pandemic situation has affected one and all, and one of the most affected sectors within the cricket community are the Maalis / Groundsman of Mumbai cricket.
These difficult times have brought various human dimensions / emotions in play, some of them have become reclusive, others are going with the flow and there are those who have decided to take it upon themselves and selflessly help out others in need.
One such humanitarian & leadership act was recently demonstrated by Vihang Sarnaik, who decided to help the maalis & groundsman of Mumbai. Vihang is an active politician and an apex member of the Mumbai Cricket Association and he used this strength to bring about a positive change in the cricket community.
Vihang pulled out the entire list of official maalis from MCA within Mumbai & distributed one months ration / essentials.
A short while back cricketgraph had initiated a campaign for groundsmen called as “Maali ko do Taali” which received tremendous support from within & beyond Mumbai.
Speaking with Cricketgraph, Vihang shared “I tried my best to support our Maalis and groundsmen who take care of all the maidans in Mumbai. With food items including rice, wheat, cooking oil, dal, salt, sugar, tea etc sustainable for a month. This is a small effort I felt I should make as a cricket lover and i hope it brings some relief to these individuals & their families. If you come across any such needy who needs help or guidance please remember i am just a call away”
Vihang so far has ensured assistance to atleast 65 maalis whom he has distributed personally across all regions of Mumbai and MMR while he states that as and when numbers increase, shall provide more in those regions whoever is in need.
The 1 month Grocery Kit which each Maali received:
- 2kg oil
- Chai 1/2 kg
- Sugar – 2kg
- Aata – 3kg
- Rice – 3kg
- Tur daal – 2kg
- Salt – 1kg
Some Snaps from his visit to the maidans-
There are numerous groundsmen across India whose only source of Income is by cleaning and maintaining the wickets to ensure the cricketers can play at their best. Their contribution to the outcome of the matches as well as to a player’s career have been the most unnoticeable aspects of the game. Especially on public grounds like Azad Maidan, Matunga Gymkhana, Cross Maidan where Maalis require our help.
To host a game of any level from local, Club to International level, groundsmen toil hard for hours under the sun and rain. They surpass challenging conditions to help us play at our full potential.
They prepare and maintain the playable wickets where the ball speeds away, turns and the pitches which shape the destiny of players as well as the teams. Yet their hard work is not always noticed under the spotlight and their incentive remains to be the occasional praises or appreciation from the cricketers. Their community despite being such crucial contributors in this game of cricket seems to be far away from the glamorous planet which Indian Cricket has become. Usually, a groundsman employed by a Cricket Association or BCCI has a somewhat decent level of security compared to the ones who work at public maidans.
Amidst this time, it’s them who have suffered the biggest hit, with Cricket matches delayed, cancelled or rescheduled for the next few months. The groundsmen/maalis of the public maidans will be facing tough times to run their livelihood. What’s more, many of them are sole earners of the family whose income depends on the matches being played on a daily basis. With no cricket games to be played, the fate of their income also seems to be in dilemma for the coming months.
In an initiative to help these people in whatever capacity we can, we at Cricketgraph have come up with an initiative called “MAALI KO DO TAALI” where any person or any level of cricketer can make a contribution whose proceeds will go towards the relief of Groundsman & all the other aspects of cricket where the money can be of help.
Link to participate in the initiative-
Maali Ko Do Taali Campaign to raise funds for Cricket Groundsmen & Maali