The Sports Authority of India (SAI) on Tuesday started a two-day special online session for female athletes of its Bangalore and Patiala centres on female physiology with special focus on different phases of menstrual cycle.
The two-day session will be conducted by Dr Poornima Raman Ngomdir (PT), who is a sports physiotherapist and head of sports sciences with Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ).
The online session, which is titled ‘Encouraging and supporting Female Athletes’, is being held to address the physical challenges faced by female athletes and aimed at understanding exactly how they can optimise their performance during that time.
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The first session was held on Tuesday with the senior women’s hockey team members stationed at SAI Bangalore and the second session will be held on Wednesday with female athletes currently training in SAI Patiala.
Nearly 100 female athletes and support staff are expected to be part of these two sessions with special care being taken that no male members are present during these meetings so that the participants don’t feel uncomfortable talking about the matter.
“With this session I am aiming to teach them how to fuel their system during different phases of the menstrual cycle and how to utilise it as an advantage rather than thinking of the hormonal changes as a disadvantage,” Dr Poornima said in a SAI statement.
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“The current time (with the lockdown and COVID-19) there is a lot of dilemma and ambiguity going around, especially for the athletes because their future is very unsure looking at the next couple of months.
“At these times, such online sessions are good because this way the athletes and their support can keep themselves updated with what is happening,” she added.
Online lectures for coaches
SAI will conduct online education programme and lectures beginning Wednesday to keep its coaches engaged during the lockdown period.
The coach education programme, to be done via Zoom, will be like a refresher course, one of the participants said.
Coaches from swimming, judo and volleyball will have their one-hour session on Wednesday while the programmes on athletics, fencing, weightlifting and boxing will be held on Thursday.
AAI starts online sessions
Meanwhile, the Archery Association of India (AAI) is set to start online programmes to reach out to the coaches and archers under lockdown.
A member of France’s 1992 Olympic gold-winning team Pascal Colmaire, who is the World Archery development and education director, is in the list of 17 experts who will impart online lessons from Thursday.
“When you are in lockdown and not doing anything it’s better to do some online training. We have prepared an online training module for our archers. Something is better than nothing,” AAI president Arjun Munda told PTI.
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