“They Get Injured In Gym, Not On Ground”: Virender Sehwag Quips On Indian Players’ Fitness

Former India opener Virender Sehwag has commented on the frequent injuries suffered by the players of the senior men’s national cricket team. He feels that the weightlifting exercises often play a major role in the injury of the players, adding that the exercise has no role in cricket. Sehwag said that the players should focus more on their game rather than going for weightlifting. He feels that the Indian players nowadays are getting injured in the gym, not on the ground.

It is worth highlighting that the exercise has been quite popular nowadays among cricket players in a bid to build a strong physique.

“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,” said Sehwag on ‘The Ranveer Show‘.

“Whereas KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma, and Shreyas Iyer, have all dealt with such injuries. They are getting injured due to weight training. They get injured in the gym, not on the ground,” he added.

Sehwag pointed out that players should not do exercises just because they are on trend and rather focus on a personalised training program that would be suitable for their respective bodies.

“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,” he said.