{"id":139409,"date":"2025-11-17T11:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T11:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/139409\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T11:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T11:36:08","slug":"running-gym-work-yoga-how-gms-prepare-for-physical-demands-of-chess-goa-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/139409\/","title":{"rendered":"Running, gym work, yoga\u2026 how GMs prepare for physical demands of chess | Goa News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Running,India\u2019s Pentala Harikrishna, 39, pumping iron in a gym Panaji: Chess and physical fitness aren\u2019t made for each other. Ordinarily, that\u2019s what anyone would think.Why do two players, who sit across each other for hours, staring blankly at the pieces in front of them, and only infrequently extending their arms, stretching a foot, need physical fitness?The grandmasters, though, will make you think. It all starts at the top with five-time world champion, Magnus Carlsen<\/a>, known to work out for hours on the treadmill, play football, and do yoga. India\u2019s own Pentala Harikrishna, 39, has a personal fitness trainer. European champion Matthias Blubaum takes to running whenever he is at home, while others do work in the gymnasium, long walks, or try their hand at a different sport to keep themselves fit for the physical demands of chess.\u201cIn classical chess, games can go up to four or five hours, and we usually play continuously nine or 11 rounds, which basically means non-stop action for nine or 11 days,\u201d Harikrishna, one of only two Indian players who remain in the fray at the World Cup here in Goa, told TOI. \u201cIn order to have a good support system for your body, physical fitness is a must.\u201dThe former India number one\u2019s obsession with fitness started recently, having hired a personal physical trainer only last year. Now he spends as much time in the gymnasium as he does in front of the laptop.\u201cThe trainer plans the workouts, and I follow the schedule. During events, she suggests running, treadmill activity, or whatever strength training machines that are available (in the gymnasium). Besides all this, I generally like going on long walks,\u201d said Harikrishna.The Arpora-based resort in north Goa where the World Cup is in progress has a well-equipped gymnasium. It\u2019s not uncommon to see grandmasters sweat it out, either in the morning as part of their daily fitness routines or later in the night as a mechanism to cope with setbacks.\u201cChess players burn a lot of calories with intense brain activity,\u201d said grandmaster Srinath Narayanan, India\u2019s Olympiad-winning chess captain and coach of the team for the ongoing World Cup in Goa. \u201cPhysical activity plays a key role in playing chess better. Even subconsciously, we don\u2019t tend to have a full meal before the game. It\u2019s light because we know that digestion interferes with brain activity. If you feel full and sleepy, then it\u2019s not going to result in optimal decisions.\u201cFor many, going to the gym is a way of coping up against losses, negative emotions. It helps with psychological recovery, besides better sleep that night. After a bad game, mentally, you are devastated, so you tire yourself out and that helps with sleeping better and recovering for the next game.\u201dAccording to Srinath, Indian players don\u2019t have the same fitness goals as their western counterparts. \u201cWe are very good at chess, but no match to the fitness of some of the players from Europe. It\u2019s definitely an area that we have to work better on,\u201d he said.German grandmaster Matthias Blubaum, a two-time European champion, focuses on relaxing and conserving energy, instead of training during competitions. But whenever home, he rarely misses going out on a run. \u201cA lot of players enjoy going to the gym during tournaments,\u201d said Blubaum, who is now preparing for the Candidates. \u201cDuring tournaments, I just want to keep my energy. You must be fit (for chess). If you are not fit, it’s impossible to keep up the energy level, and then at some point, you will miss the small details, lose the game and get knocked out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"India\u2019s Pentala Harikrishna, 39, pumping iron in a gym Panaji: Chess and physical fitness aren\u2019t made for each…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[58421,565,31725,31724,31726,31727,134,94854,111,139,69,94855,31728,94856],"class_list":{"0":"post-139409","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-chess","9":"tag-fitness","10":"tag-goa-latest-news","11":"tag-goa-news","12":"tag-goa-news-live","13":"tag-goa-news-today","14":"tag-health","15":"tag-magnus-carlsen","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-newzealand","18":"tag-nz","19":"tag-pentala-harikrishna","20":"tag-today-news-goa","21":"tag-world-cup"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}