The physical side of a mental battle

Although it may seem unlikely, chess players have historically adopted different strategies to stay in shape

A few years ago Magnus Carlsen altered how far forward he would crane his neck while playing the boards. This was one of the many micro-tweaks the five-time World chess champion had done in the 2010s, but this postural adjustment was unusually fastidious even by Carlsen’s standards.

Turns out, Carlsen had stumbled upon a study in the Journal of Physical Therapy Science that mentioned that craning your neck too far forward can lead to a 30 per cent loss of lung capacity. The study noted that a 30-degree forward lean increases the stress on the neck by nearly 60 pounds, meaning there is more load on our back and neck muscles which then results in more migraines and irregular breathing.

Carlsen wasn’t about to let a 30 per cent drop in lung capacity compromise his chances of sustained dominance. After all, he hadn’t allowed his love for his famous half-orange juice-half-water mixture to come in the way of his progress, not even when it meant the world to him since he was a child.

He replaced the juice with a mixture of chocolate milk and plain milk to ensure his blood sugar levels were reasonable, meaning he would not be subject to energy crashes which he was encountering more and more of as he neared the 30s. He then fixed his posture. Subsequently, he incorporated intense cardio sessions, streamlined his passion for football with frequent pick-up games, and got in some basketball when he could. Generally, Carlsen lives a life many would have a tough time associating with a chess player. In fact, the routines of some of the world’s leading chess players are not dissimilar to the efforts put in by amateur athletes. “There are lots of factors you have to keep in mind, but the most important factors are: diet, sleep, and your psychological make-up,” says Ramachandran Ramesh, a former grandmaster.

Ramesh runs a highly-successful academy in Chennai which has given birth to scores of remarkable prospects since its inception in 2008, including new hope R Praggnanandhaa. “I had a tough time because I didn’t think of these things when I was playing. I remember having very bad acidity issues by the time I was 18. I used to vomit my breakfast the second I would enter the venue for our games, and I would have no energy to play. If the games went on for five hours, I was a zombie for 2-3 hours.”

“I use my experiences to tell these boys that they should focus on learning and not winning,” he adds.

Ramesh also recalls stories of losing sleep because he found it impossible to shut off after a point.

Abhijith Kunte, a grandmaster from Pune, says his cardio routine, including several suryanamaskars, was more so meant to ensure he could sleep and not so much to remain in shape. “When you play so many rounds in succession, it’s difficult to turn off, especially when you lose,” explains Kunte. “Your brain tries to fix errors and you go into this spiral. It’s very, very exhausting. The greatest players are those who can forget the past and get to the board the next day without any spillover from the previous day.”

Numerous players find it impossible to ignore the errors of the previous day or an earlier tournament. In fact, there are studies that claim that chess players lose close to 6000 calories a day during tournaments.

Before you dust out the old chess board and get in on the calorie-crunching ‘workout’, the study is not conclusive since the data set is small, but the paper did offer a reason as to why this could be happening. It cites stress as the primary reason.

During a game of chess, heart rate and breathing rate spike consistently, and there is a case for elevated blood pressure too. In turn, sleep is affected, causing fatigue, and eventually weight loss. A top neuroscientist deduced that a brain operating on less sleep, even by just one hour, requires more energy to stay awake during the chess game.

The earlier mentioned study indicated that this level of induced stress could produce an average weight loss of two pounds a day. “I don’t recall losing much weight, but I do recall that story about Karpov,” says grandmaster Adhiban Baskaran.

Adhiban is referring to ‘The Aborted Match’ of 1984, one where Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov battled for five months and 48 games before the then FIDE President Florencio Campomane called off the game.

Perhaps it was impossible, even for Campomane, to ignore that Karpov had lost close to 22 pounds during the games. Kasparov wasn’t fairing so poorly, but he could see the toll the games and the resultant stress had taken on Karpov’s sunken eyes.

As an alternative theory, behavioural scientists from the United Kingdom have done a study that suggests that chess players are so zoned in, especially during world-level tournaments, that they forget to eat.

“...these sort of things don’t happen anymore,” says Manuel Aaron, India’s first International Master, when asked about the effect of long games on the body. “The games are not so long and even tournaments are not so long so I don’t think players need to worry about that. That said, sleep and good food are essential.”

“Physical fitness can be a walk or something. It doesn’t have to be so intense,” he adds.

One of the greatest proponents of chess, Viswanathan Anand was an ardent advocate of physical routines. Besides spending a couple of hours at the gym each day, he cycled frequently and combined it with swimming once a week. Of course, the routine took a hit during tournaments, but he managed to squeeze in an abridged workout.

And, guess what, he didn’t do this to ‘get ripped’ or zone into that mind-body connection, he only did it so that he could literally stop dreaming about chess. “I think mental fatigue is more difficult to handle than physical fatigue. When the body is tired, we can sleep really well. But if the mind is tired or worried, it’s very difficult to sleep. I try to keep my mind calm and happy. So before an event, I try to switch off and take some time for myself -- take a small holiday or do something different just to recharge my batteries,” Anand had said when he was on the tour.

The young Indian brigade is a bit different. “I don’t think many of them focus on their fitness anymore,” said a former player in response to the change in fitness trends in chess over the years. “We used to be more careful about those things.”

Adhiban counters by saying the new generation does a lot but the focus remains on chess because ‘we have to get a certain level to earn that time off’. Adhiban also admits that he caught the training bug from Carlsen, saying: “I saw him during the World Championships in Chennai (2013). He would pack up and go to Mamallapuram and play basketball there during the off days. He also does a lot of cardio to stay in shape.”

Since then, Adhiban has designed a cardio routine for himself and remains dedicated to his diet. “This generation is more health conscious,” says Ramesh. “The previous generation didn’t focus on these things much. They drank, smoked, skipped breakfast, and didn’t look healthy on the board. I think since Anand, everyone has become a bit more professional.”

SL Narayanan, a grandmaster from Kerala, is cut from a different cloth, perhaps out of pressure. Narayanan’s focus, mother Lyna insists, is purely on chess. “He is only about chess. He doesn’t think of anything else,” she says. “See, I am the only earning member in this family, and he doesn’t have any sponsors so he works very hard at chess. He doesn’t have time for anything else.”

Maybe, being able to focus on the body to succeed at a mental sport is also a privilege.