300 Sukma athletes to undergo fitness tests
KUCHING: About 300 athletes who participated in last year’s Sukma in Perak will undergo f itness tests at the Sarawak Stadium, Petra Jaya from Feb 23 to 24 and March 2.
Organised by the Sarawak Sports Corporation (SSC) in collaboration with the Sarawak State Sports Council ( MSNS), the athletes come from 34 sports and will be conducted by SSC strength and conditioning trainers Nathanael Tan and Joshua Philip from the High-Performance Unit.
They will be assisted by the MSN gym staff and coaches from each of the sports.
The athletes participating in the testing will range in ages from 16 to 21 year and are selected from respective associations in preparation for the upcoming Sukma in Johor next year.
Strength and conditioning head coach Andre Richards said the idea behind the testing is to provide a guideline of where the athletes are currently at with regard to their physical and mental state in terms of performance.
“The types of tests are both physical and mental, with tests for strength on lower and upper body, plus also from a psychological angle we want to know whether the athletes have set targets for this year,” he said.
These tests evaluate strength and weaknesses of where the athletes currently stand. The information gathered will be used to plan training programmes for the athletes to further enhance their sporting abi lities and reduce any risks of injuries from happening.
Although these are the first tests, many sports are already in training and the first tests will be followed by the re- test in April to monitor whether improvements have been made from recommendations from the conditioning coaches.
The sports involved in the testing are athletics, swimming, diving, weightlifting, cycling, gymnastics, silat, muay, wushu, taekwando, boxing, judo, kabbadi, archery, ten-pin bowling, shooting, lawn bowls, golf, petanque, rugby, futsal, football, handball, netball, basketbal l, footbal l, cricket, hockey, squash, badminton, sepak takraw, tennis and table tennis.