NEWS
Geeta Phogat is the first Indian woman wrestler to qualify for the Olympics. She is also the first female wrestler from India who won India’s first ever gold medal in women’s wrestling in 55kg freestyle category at the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Geeta was born on December 15, 1988, in Balali village in Bhiwani district, Haryana to a wrestler Mahavir Singh. She along with her now Commonwealth medalist sisters started training very young under the guidance of their father.
Geeta tells, “It’s not possible to forget those initial 5-6 years of my training. Those were the most difficult years. We had to work really hard be it scorching heat or cold winters. My father used to wake up at 3:30 in the morning and we had to practice in the akhada for three hours. Post which we went to school and on returning in the evening, we had to train again for 2-3 hours. The akhada and our father were the only two things we saw in our lives at that point.”
“We used to train with my cousins as there were no girls in this profession back then. There were a lot of times when we ended up fighting with the boys from our village. Around that time, my father felt even his daughters could be menacing wrestlers,” she adds
When the girls began training, they were ridiculed by the community but it didn’t deter the spirit of Mahavir Phogat who kept on dreaming for the Gold.
The Phogat sisters wake up before Sunrise at 4 am. They train for a total of 6 hours where they selflessly dedicate 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening.
Their training sessions consist of a mix of Cardio, High-Intensity Interval Training in combination with weight training and wrestling techniques in the end.
The Cardio exercises give you strength, agility and flexibility which are key features of wrestling. Geeta runs to keep improving their stamina till the time they would exhaust out. Her dedication to running is extreme.
HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) is an anaerobic form of exercise meant to increase the heartbeat and provide quick blood flow to the body, strengthening the muscles, building endurance and increasing the overall performance of athletes. It is practised either solely or with a combination of other exercise forms. Examples of HIIT are burpees, deadlifts and push-ups.
Weight Training is a basic part of her training to give strength to the arms, legs and core which is required for the defence.
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