Parineeti Chopra in 'Saina': Eshan Naqvi says 'her co-ordination skills gave her an edge'

Celebrities go through vigorous training and workshops to get into the skin of the character they play onscreen. Among such celebrities is Parineeti Chopra, who will be seen playing the role of a badminton player in her upcoming movie Saina. Parineeti Chopra in Saina plays the role of the ace badminton champion Saina Nehwal. One of Parineeti's trainer for Saina, Eshan Naqvi gave the audience an insight into Parineeti's fitness regimen.

Eshan Naqvi shares his experience of training Parineeti 

In an interview with Mid-Day, Eshan shared that Parineeti had some tendencies of a badminton player due to her excellent hand to eye co-ordination that she has achieved over the years after training in yoga and kalarippayattu. Eshan shared that one of the first things that were taught to Parineeti during the prep work of the film was footwork training. He further explained that flexibility in badminton is really important for the player to twist and move their body in any direction according to the movement of the shuttle and they worked to build that kind of endurance that will help Parineeti to play the sport convincingly. 

He compared badminton to dance choreography, saying that the former too has certain movements that can be learnt in order to conserve energy. Since Parineeti has never played any sport professionally before their main aim was for her to increase her muscle endurance and power and the most important thing in badminton, to teach her to focus on the shuttle.

Parineeti trained for seven months to prepare for Saina

As Parineeti also had other working commitments, Eshan had to focus on the necessary requirements and do away completely with the basics. He revealed that Parineeti would get up at 5 a.m every day to train while she was in London shooting for The Girl on the Train and whenever she was unwell or couldn't run they would make her stand and hit the shuttle back to back.

Eshan teamed up with Shrikant Vad, president of the Thane Badminton Academy to train Parineeti. The actor spent 12 days in the academy and trained under the guidance of Shrikant Vad. Other than training Parineeti also had to focus on her diet along with agility training, physiotherapy and weight lifting session to prepare for her role in Saina.

Parineeti Chopra also recently posted a video titled 'How I became Saina' to share her journey and daily routine for her role as Saina Nehwal.

Saina's trailer has also been garnering a lot of positive reviews on the internet. The trailer that was released a week ago has crossed more than 15 million views on Youtube. Saina is slated to release on March 26 in theatres.