Abhinav Bindra is the current World and Olympic champion in the 10m Air rifle event. To date, Abhinav is the youngest person to represent India at the Olympic Games. By winning gold in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, he became the first Indian ever to win an individual gold medal at the Olympics.
Abhinav was kind enough to agree to a telephone interview with V.Srinivasan of Takath.com. The following interview contains Abhinav's insights on the physical and mental training aspects of shooting.
[Q] How did you get into this sport? When did you first start shooting and training?
My family had moved to Chandigarh and I was in search of a pastime. I was always interested in guns-i.e. toy guns. I was about 12 years old and a family friend introduced me to Lt. Col. J.S. Dhillon who had a makeshift shooting range in his backyard and who became my first coach.
[Q] You won the 10m Air Rifle event at the Olympics. Do you compete in other events?
I specialize in the 10m Air Rifle event. I have competed in other Air Rifle events-but in shooting you specialize...I don't compete in pistol or shotgun events.
[Q] How important is physical fitness to shooting and why?
Physical fitness is important to shooting. It is a sport with very specific physical demands. Training is done with that specific nature in mind. For instance-big muscles wouldn't help in this sport. Bigger the muscle, more the muscle tremor which is not something you'd want.
Stability, flexibility and coordination are very important things to work on. Cardiovascular fitness is important too. A fitter person would have a lower resting heart rate-you don't want increased heart rates at crucial junctures in a shooting event. But at the same time...this is a reaction oriented sport and you don't want your heart rate to be too low either.
[Q] And how do you train for these aspects?
I have trained conventionally for it-a core training program for stability and a fitness program with weight training. I do a significant amount of cardiovascular training. I have done many types of training and my conclusion is...the specificity of the sport is the most important. Biomechanics, shooting stance and working on body imbalances-I work a lot with top biomechanical experts.
[Q] Why aren't shooting events open if there are no gender specific advantages?
I think this may have something to do with the Olympic charter. There were open events before-in fact a Chinese woman won the skeet shooting event in '92. After that...I think the charter changed.
[Q] What about the mental aspects of training-in a sport that demands such concentration and with such high levels of match stress?
Again, I have trained with a variety of methods. I have consulted sports psychologists, practiced meditation and yoga. Before the Olympics I used a biofeedback program with an EEG to detect my optimum state-between being muscularly relaxed but also having a sharp enough reaction time to trigger at the right moment. I must have spent some 200 hours in total on that.
At crucial moments during a shooting event, adrenalin comes into play. A shooter would want to inhibit that adrenalin surge. Prior to the Olympics, when training in Germany- I tried various high adrenalin activities. It helped.
Before the Olympic Games-I would have been training an average of 40 hours a week But ultimately, you cannot simulate an Olympic event. At the crunch moment, you have to have to summon the courage and will power to get you through. However, when I got to the Beijing Olympics I was confident- I had done everything to prepare.
[Q] What attributes would a ‘natural' shooter have?
Two main attributes. Good hand-eye coordination. I think Indians have an advantage here-just genetically speaking. Indians are good at skilled sports. Until field hockey started being played on astro turf (leading to increased physical demands), Indians were dominant at the sport.
The second would be anatomy-length of limbs and bones. Shooting in the air rifle event requires a somewhat unnatural stance. The target is at a fixed height. For someone like me, the result is I need to compensate for the unnatural pose by using muscle. The moment you need to use muscle-questions of muscle tremors affecting your shot and stability come into the picture.
In fact, the Chinese actively look for children with specific anatomy and body structure during in their recruiting efforts.
