State of the art: An official demonstrates the modern fitness training machines at the Abhinav Bindra Targeting Performance Centre.
The Bhubaneswar centre at the Kalinga Stadium complex has state-of-the-art machines geared towards producing world-class athletes
The Abhinav Bindra Targeting Performance Centre at the Kalinga Stadium complex is the brainchild of the only Indian to win an individual Olympic gold.
The five centres – here and at Pune, New Delhi, Mohali and Bengaluru - come as an eye-opener to the kind of preparations that go into making a world-class athlete.
Opened in February this year and backed by the Odisha government and Rungta Mines, the centre currently caters to young residents of the State hostels and national athletes, free of cost, with a proposal to open it up for non-athletes in future.
Dr. Kartik Doshi, the man in-charge of the centre, says: "I had to undergo training about the machines before I joined here, despite having worked in USA for two years before this, so you can understand how advanced they are. But this is what we need at the elite level to match the best."
The machines have names alien to many - Walker View, D Wall, Iso Move, Static and Dynamic Pro Kin and Balance Trunk MF. And a brief experience on them reveals that staying absolutely still is one of the most difficult things to do.
"Most people and even experts tend to go straight into strengthening as part of recovery process. But stability is the most important and undervalued element of fitness. Unless you are stable, your efforts at strengthening will not just be wasted but also affect your performances on the field. That’s why we put a premium on stability before moving to advanced training," Dr. Doshi explains.
The centre works on an assessment-training-assessment system with both aspects working together. With the machines giving instant visual feedback to the athlete, the process of rectifying errors is much faster. The Walker View, for example, is an all-encompassing system that puts walking and running through a range of tests, including the motion of the trunk and gait analysis.
And the D-Wall, only the second centre in India to have one – the other being at the ABTP Centre in Bengaluru - acts like a digital mirror with floor sensors, providing real-time visible feedback to help perfect motor movements, check the quality of lifts in strength-training.
The pride of place is for the Electrical Muscular Stimulation (EMS) with vests fitted with mechanisms that condense two hours in a gym seven days a week into 20 minutes of intense training twice a week. But the real favourite with elite athletes has been CryoSpace, which assist muscle recovery after training or competition.
"It takes about 48 hours for complete recovery normally. With this, a player can play in the morning, recover and then play again in the evening," declared Dr. Doshi. Powered by Nitrogen reduced to minus 150 degrees, the maximum time one is allowed in it is 3 minutes. "Else, hypothermia may set in," he adds.
"Having been to the best performance and sports medicine and injury centres across the world, I wanted to bring the same to India. My real desire is to work at the grassroots and expose them to the best of science and technology as that is the only way we will change the ecosystem of sport in India," Bindra told media.
The Bhubaneswar centre has, till date, worked with more than 350 athletes at all levels and performed more than 600 tests. While some elite athletes have also availed the services, the immediate focus, though, is on testing and training the kids at the three State sports hostels in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Sambhalpur. "Overall, we have services close to 700 athletes across our centres for free in the last year," revealed Bindra.
There are proposals to do more. More centres, more equipments, more experts to try and explain the importance of the smallest of things that go on to together make the greatest impact on the biggest sports stage.
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