We must stop using ‘hard work’ as a smokescreen

Talk of is just a way to pass the buck. At the elite level, success is defined by a scientific approach, access to expertise

There is a word beloved of our athletes and coaches and you will hear it being used endlessly to evoke, I can only presume, some sort of awe and respect. The word is “mehnat”. Literally, hard work. In the context of Indian athletes, “hard work” — blood and sweat, much sacrifice, an iron will, staying behind in the gym when everyone else has left, waking up earlier than everyone and hitting the tracks before the sun is up. Ask Indian coaches about the success of any athlete and that’s the first and last word: mehnat.

It’s a glorious concept, but also patently false and misleading. Here’s why: at the elite level, everyone works hard. It’s not what separates the good from the great. It’s required of everyone.

As for working harder than one’s regimen dictates? A top-level athlete in this modern age, training outside their strictly regimented programme, would probably be setting themselves up for failure.

At the rarefied levels in sports, the only thing that works is a training regimen that has been built on the back of deep knowledge and scientific understanding of the sport and the human body, as well as the specific requirements and abilities of the athlete in question. Which means that success is now made up of two things: innate ability; and access to expertise.

The Ingebrigtsen brothers from Norway are a track phenomenon. Coached by their father Gjert, who was never a competitive runner, Henrik, Filip and Jakob have a dazzling collection of middle-distance titles and records between them. Each of them has held the 1500m title in Europe. Jakob, the youngest, is 20 and this year’s Olympic champion and the holder of the Olympic record in 1500m. Each brother has followed a different training trajectory, and was encouraged to find what gave them the most joy even as they pursued track glory. For one brother, that involved playing football as part of his training. For another, it was crosscountry skiing.

Through it all, Gjert tracked every aspect of their training with the sharpest of lenses. He controlled their mileages as they grew in the sport, according to a formula he devised himself through obsessive research. He introduced carefully calibrated high-intensity sessions, but only when they were of a certain age.

All their training sessions now are determined by blood lactic acid levels (it’s the thing, put simply, that tires the muscles out). By continuously monitoring these levels, Gjert manages to keep each of their sessions at the correct intensity — not too easy, not