ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Hockey Feder­ation (PHF) has planned online tutorials for national players to keep them fully fit while continuing to adhere to the mandatory lockdown conditions to combat the coronavirus pandemic during Ramazan.

“We are going to start online classes for our players during Ramazan. There’ll be various groups of four to five players, who will be receiving a 15-minute video from our previous matches as well as those of other international teams. We’ll share these videos regularly with them, national head coach Khawaja Muhammad Junaid said on Thursday. “They’ll be asked to watch these videos carefully, take down notes and also edit one or two moves. Then, we’ll hold discussions via online video conferencing to gauge their understanding.”

He said the step is aimed at improving players’ game knowledge. The PHF has full information about individual level of each and every player and efforts would be made to improve these with the help of videos, he added.

Junaid said that previously the players were given a four-week workout plan at the outset of lockdown to help them maintain physical fitness and prepare them for future assignments.

“When you don’t train for a long period, your muscles get weak. Hence, through the workout plan, which involves various exercises, we’ve tried to help players maintain their pre-lockdown cardiovascular level. Despite the trying times, the players’ response to workout plan has been very encouraging.

“Now, we’ve devised a test that is starting today [Thursday]. The test contains a set of various exercises and through these we’ll gauge their heart rate and muscle strength. We’ll try to know how many repetitions [of these exercises], they make in a minute. This will provide us with their baseline during the lockdown period,” said Junaid.

The head coach said that after the end of the coronavirus pandemic the players would be in a position to make onward preparations. “We are also focussed on basic hockey skills. Keeping in view the importance of contacts, we are concentrating on three main areas. Firstly, hands and stick contact is very important and we are trying to make them [players] understand that it should be as per the required level.

Secondly, stick and ball contact is of paramount importance, therefore, they are told to work on its improvement. Thirdly, eye and ball contact is also of great significance as receiving and passing in the game depends a lot on it,” he told.

He said that the ongoing lockdown was going to coincide with Ramazan and that would serve as de-load period for players. “It’ll be blessing in disguise for them. I believe they’ll come out stronger and will be more knowledgeable about hockey.”

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2020