Ms. Namita Nayyar:
Winning involves a lot of determination and hard work, more so in the life of a sportswoman. What exercises comprise your fitness regime when you are preparing for a competition?
Ms. Sania Mirza:
Fitness regime is very fast, as an athlete, it is a part of our life. I work out 4-5 hours a day including tennis. It involves everything, weight training, agility, a lot of core drills, endurance, strength. I have a trainer, Robert and we sit together and he writes me down a program and then we figure it out.
Ms. Namita Nayyar:
Sports-specific nutrition is an integral part of a sports person diet to cope with the physical stress and recover from wear & tear. There is no doubt you too need to take special care of your diet. What diet do you follow to stay healthy and physically fit?
Ms. Sania Mirza:
Diet is an integral part of every athlete. I was on a very very strict diet obviously when I was trying to drop all those kilos. But I try to keep it as basic. I believe in moderation. I don’t think you should starve your body of anything. Thankfully, I don’t have so much of a sweet tooth so it helps me as well. I just try to cut down on processed sugar and gluten, most of the time.
Ms. Namita Nayyar:
Being a professional athlete, you are a role model for many striving to make their dream come true, provide us with some motivational words to help others climb up the ladder of success in this field?
Ms. Sania Mirza:
As a professional athlete, I would just like to say to anybody who wants top pick up a sport, it could be anything, is that you have to love it first, before wanting to be a star or be successful at it. If you don’t love it, then I feel it’s very very difficult to be very good at it. It makes all those hours of struggle and hard work, even harder. Love it, enjoy it. Even today if I didn’t enjoy playing tennis, I wouldn’t pick up my tennis racket again. You have to work hard but determination, sacrifice and persistence are a very integral part of being a professional athlete.