Training secrets of world chess champions

(Fatherland) - According to sports site ESPN, the way chess champions use to win is not competition skills but physical training.
On a stormy evening in early March last year, Fabiano Caruana decided to go out. He drove three hours from his apartment in St. Louis, Missouri, USA to a 2,000-acre plot of land in the countryside owned by a friend.

Around 7:30 the next morning, he started an hour-long jog with his training partner Cristian Chirila. Watching Fabiano jog, it's easy to mistake him for a football player. About 1m7 tall, Caruana has a toned body and strong, taut legs. Caruana made a tight schedule for that day: 8km run, an hour of tennis, half an hour of basketball and an hour of swimming.

But in reality, Caruana is an American chess grandmaster, the number two player in the world. And his training partner Chirila is also a Romanian grandmaster. And they're doing all that to prepare for the physical demands of chess.

Chess requires physical strength

This seems quite surprising because a sport that only requires sitting for hours and where the only effort is moving the arms to move chess pieces can subject grandmasters to such intense physical training. ? However, the actual evidence is completely different. Chess players need to have extremely good health, no less than other sports.

The 1984 World Chess Championship had to be postponed after 5 months and 48 matches because defending champion Anatoly Karpov lost weight too quickly, about 10kg. "He looked like he was dead," recalled grandmaster and commentator Maurice Ashley. In 2004, winner Rustam Kasimdzhanov lost 7.8kg during the world championship.

In October 2018, Polar, a heart rate monitoring company based in the US, tracked chess players during a tournament and discovered that 21-year-old Russian grandmaster Mikhail Antipov burned 560 calories in just two hours - almost as many calories as Roger Federer burns in an hour of tennis.

Grandmasters in competition are always under great pressure. That causes their heart rate and breathing rate to increase, forcing their body to expend energy. Meanwhile, chess players eat less during tournaments, simply because they don't have the time or appetite.

Stress also leads to sleep changes and disturbances, which in turn causes more fatigue and can lead to faster weight loss. Kasimdzhanov noted that after lack of sleep, the brain needs more energy to stay alert enough to compete.

All combined can cause players to lose an average of 1kg per day, or about 5-6kg over the course of a 10-day tournament.

To reduce stress, today's players have begun to incorporate strict diet and exercise to increase the amount of oxygen supplied to the brain during tournaments, preventing strokes related to low sugar levels. in the blood and brain, as well as to maintain their ability to think. "Physical fitness and brain activity are intertwined," says Ashley.

According to Ashley, India's first grandmaster, Viswanathan Anand, practiced hard for two hours every night to tire himself out and not think about chess anymore. And Kasimdzhanov plays tennis and basketball every day. Chirila also does at least one hour of heavy lifting and one hour of weight training to build her muscles before tournaments.

Comprehensive training habits of the world's top chess players

But none of these grandmasters have perfected their training routines the way the current world champion, Magnus Carlsen, has.

The training secrets of world chess champions are good experience for Vietnamese players - Photo 2.
Magnus Carlsen soon realized his physical deficiency and made appropriate training adjustments. Photo: Forbes India.

In 2017, Carlsen realized he had a problem. The five-year reigning world number one feels his ability to hold the title is diminishing. He still won most tournaments, but his matches were longer and his victories less certain. He also felt weak in the final hours of the match. He noticed that younger players were catching up to him.

So Carlsen and his father visited the Olympic training center in Oslo, Norway, to seek advice from experts. Their suggestion is simple: "Cut back on the amount of orange juice you drink during tournaments."

Before that, Carlsen often used a mixture of half orange juice, half white water to increase energy since he was a child. But as we grow older, our bodies no longer break down sugar as quickly as before. Nutritionists suggested that he should instead drink a mixture of chocolate milk and whole milk, which contains less sugar but will also replenish the body with calcium, potassium and protein.

But that was just the beginning of Carlsen's transformation. Since then, he has been more interested in training his body for chess. Before the 2021 world championships, he went skiing every day and shared that the sport helped strengthen his legs and willpower. Carlsen also hired a personal chef to accompany him to ensure a diet that combined protein, carbs and calcium.

During tournaments, Carlsen focuses on relaxation and staying mentally at ease. He chews gum while competing to enhance brain function. He also rhythmically tapped his feet to keep his brain and body awake.

Carlsen even tries to optimize sitting. Carlsen believes that many chess players often bow their heads deeply forward, which can lead to a 30% reduction in breathing capacity in the lungs. And according to Keith Overland, DC, a chiropractor who has worked with the US Olympic Training Center, tilting your head forward 60 degrees increases pressure on your neck, eventually leading to headaches and irregular breathing. and reduces the amount of oxygen reaching the brain.

Instead, Carlsen leans his lower back against the chair so his body maintains its natural curve, keeps his feet firmly on the ground, and leans forward at about a 75-degree angle. In this position, he doesn't move too far forward to limit his oxygen intake while not moving too far back.

Carlsen also reduced his playing schedule to 6 to 8 tournaments per year (as opposed to 12 to 14 for most major players). He also takes a few months off to recover after each tournament.

These measures were effective as Carlsen continued to score new victories this year. On the morning of September 20, Magnus Carlsen entered the final of the online Speed Chess Championship after defeating Wesley So with an overwhelming score of 22-7. The Speed Chess Championship has gone through seven editions, with Carlsen winning the first two tournaments but not participating in the next four tournaments.