Josh Kennedy: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Cricket Matters podcast. This episode is strength training for cricketers, the ultimate guide. But very briefly, let's apologize for the slight hiatus in the podcast because James and I have been horrendously ill for the past week or so. But we are back in the land of the living, are we not, James?

James Breese: We are indeed, and yeah, in terms of like 1 0 status, I think you definitely win that by going to A& E, so congratulations. 

Josh Kennedy: Yeah. 

James Breese: Yeah, 

Josh Kennedy: it was, it was great. I had a lot of fun, thankfully. I wasn't in there for too long. Anyway, yeah, we're all good, and we are back talking strength training for cricketers. So let's, let's start with some of the, I don't know, preconceptions and potentially mistakes that people make when it comes to strength training, mate.

James Breese: Lots of them. Lots of them, particularly when it comes to today's society, where everyone's influenced by The social media influences, the people who want to look good naked crew, the bodybuilder crew, I think is probably the best way to put it. Now that's all good and well being all of us, even me, you know, back in the day, particularly as blokes and a lot of the [00:01:00] women too, these days, they all want to look good naked and pose in front of the mirrors and look good in their booty leggings and guys want to wear their vests and all look good.

And you get a lot of peer pressure. But there's a big difference between bodybuilding training and strength training for athleticism. Two very different things. Now, you can look good naked by strength training for athleticism too. Slightly different towards how bodybuilders look, but it's still an element of looking and acting like an athlete.

And that's what we want to try and get across today, is to learn from our mistakes. Have a different idea and perception of what strength training really is. and what you can do about it. And that's really important because back in the day when we were growing up, Josh, we didn't have the YouTube or the interwebs to learn from to figure things out by ourselves.

And I had to travel the world to go and learn from the best because strength training just wasn't a big part of cricketing culture in the nineties and early two thousands. It just wasn't. But in American sports, it's been around for decades and they're [00:02:00] far more advanced in their development of athletes through strength training.

Particularly power and speed because all American sports are power and speed based, right? So we can learn a lot from them. But we also need to learn from the endurance crowd for cricketers too. So that's kind of our overall guide today is to think strategy. Tactics are what you call the lifting of the weights and what type of exercises.

But we're talking more strategy today. So you can think differently and approach your strength training differently to allow you to perform better out there on the field. 

Josh Kennedy: So how should then cricketers approach their strength training rather than learn from the, from the bro boys who focus on, you know, body parts and curls in the mirror, curls in the squat rack, et cetera, et cetera.

What should we do differently? 

James Breese: Number one term and expression you need to understand is never load weight onto dysfunction. Okay. What do I mean by that? You need to move well first before you load weight onto it. If [00:03:00] you struggle to move well, because you should be thinking of weight training and thought in terms of movement patterns.

You're not training muscles, you're training movements, okay? And if you're loading weight onto these poor movement patterns, something is going to go pop at some point. It may not go pop, but if you have a poor movement, and I'll talk about this a bit in a second now, and you load weight onto it, it's like a handbrake, because the body is holding you back.

Particularly in, say, bowling, you may think you're bowling as fast as you want to, but sometimes you're bowling with a handbrake on if you have poor shoulder mobility. If you can't do a basic squat pattern. If you can't touch your toes. Touch your toes is a great example, because if you can't touch your toes, it's not because you've got great, tight hamstrings, it's because all the muscles aren't firing in sequence in the way they should be to allow you to get there in the first place.

It's what we call a motor control problem, or a tone issue. Okay. So, we can go really geeky on this, but [00:04:00] I'm trying not to, to keep things as simple as possible so we all understand. Because a lot of the other guys in sports science go way above my head sometimes too. Sometimes it takes us, it takes both of us a while sometimes to understand what is going on.

So, if you load weight onto dysfunction, you will go pop at some point, and you'll never reach your true strength potential. Because strength training is actually more to do with the brain, your CNS system, central nervous system, than it is with your muscles. You've got to learn and understand that strength training is not just about the hardware, the muscles, it's about the software too, which is your brain, and they've got to work in conjunction together.

So that's the first tip, which I hope I've explained succinctly and as easily as possible. 

Josh Kennedy: So in terms of movements, not muscles, what are the movements that people need to focus on? We've got seven of them. Have we not got seven? 

James Breese: Yep, exactly. So our master movement is locomotion, right? You need to be able to pretty important in cricket.

Exactly. Right. If you [00:05:00] can't move, you're too static. You're always going to struggle. So in terms of locomotion, think about exercises like. Walking lunges. That's a really simple example, right? So that's a form of locomotion. So every workout we do has locomotion. So you have locomotion, like I said, seven principles.

Locomotion, push, pull, hinge, squat, rotate, anti rotate. Those are the main things. Now I think we can all understand what, Like locomotives to move, locomotions to move, push and pull, pushing, push ups, pull, pull ups as a, as a good example. Hinge pattern, you have a deadlift pattern, kettlebell swings, that type of stuff.

Squat, you know, goblet squat, barbell squat, okay, you have all these things. But I think what people may struggle with, what about rotate and anti rotate, right? So rotation is the, is the idea of like, well, what movements are you rotating around? Okay. A really good example of this is a kettlebell windmill, right?

So where you're actually, your body's [00:06:00] rotating around to lift the weight. I'm trying to demonstrate on camera here. So for those of you watching on YouTube, you can see. You can't if you're listening via the normal thing, but a kettlebell windmill is a form of, of, you know, rotation movement around this. Um, a bent press is a form of rotation too.

Turkish get up, you're using rotation a little bit. Okay. In fact, if you want to do, I had to create a workout, put a Turkish get up and all of these things, it covers all seven movements, right? That's a really simple example. 

Josh Kennedy: Yeah. In terms of cricket rotation, batting, bowling, throwing all rotational. 

James Breese: Oh, exactly.

Yeah. You're doing cable pulls. Right? You know, like, all this sort of stuff, that's all pulling, you know, rotational type movements we're trying to do. And anti rotate is the opposite. We're trying to resist rotation. Right? So again, think of cricketing and batting. It's not just the side that you're working as.

And if I'm left handed, it's not my left side I'm just using as I'm trying to drive for this. Your right side is stabilizing the body to allow this movement to happen. So, a [00:07:00] really good example is a farmer's carry with one kettlebell in one hand, because it's stabilizing the other side. And if you want to go to like a bench press, like let's go a dumbbell bench press, just use a single arm dumbbell bench press.

And what you're doing as you're pressing out on one side, the opposite side is actually stabilizing on the other. So we don't load weight on the dysfunction. And then we think about movements and not muscles in terms of how we develop the strength. Uh, the needed to perform at the highest levels. 

Josh Kennedy: Yeah.

And again, going back to potential mistakes, that whole sounds very simple, but people generally tend to want to focus on power, speed, agility first, right, without, without looking at, have I got any potential movement restrictions or asymmetries in the body? Right. 

James Breese: Mm hmm. Yep, exactly that. And you know, they, they go straight away to that.

Again, you can use this CrossFit has done this for years. Right. And you see, [00:08:00] you look at all the, all the, all the, uh, the, uh, plyometrics, like box jumps and stuff that they all do and the fails compilation you see on, on Instagram. There's one that popped up in my timeline this morning. People falling flat on their face.

That's a great example of people trying to do exercises when they're fatigued, that they haven't got the prerequisite strengths, power, coordination, agility to do so in the first place. And they fall flat on their face, quite literally, right? And we don't want to do that. It's about moving well, moving often, and doing it, and owning the movements of the exercises to allow us to do it.

I'd rather see someone lift less weight with perfect movement than I would see somebody try and load, overload. Onto dysfunction because it's all easy until it gets heavy Yeah, I promise you this now the number of times I see people hurting themselves because they go heavier They go heavy the barbell always wins, right?

You can always go heavier. Your body will just crumple under it It's just, it's not a case of if, it's when most of the [00:09:00] time for most people, particularly cricketers who put their body through such rigorous, demanding movements that the body shouldn't really be doing that, you know, that's when it really comes into light.

So a number of people with back pains, hip pain, shoulder pain, all these type of things. I can almost relate to, particularly the younger guys, is loading weight onto dysfunction first, they don't fix the root cause of it. So, it's not a, a movement episode, but we're trying to make you understand this is for strength training, it is a similar sort of thing.

Again, if you don't believe us, listen to Nick Gill, who's the head S& C of the All Blacks. Has been for 15 years, look how well they perform. He's exactly the same thing. Don't load weight onto dysfunction. I'd rather see better squat technique than they would on heavier weights. And he says one of the biggest things they have to do when new players come into the All Blacks setup is teach them how to move properly.

Josh Kennedy: Yeah, exactly. So if someone is a beginner Just starting [00:10:00] out in strength training for cricket. Um, do they try and need to get all movements within every session? Would that be a good place to start? 

James Breese: Yeah, absolutely. So again, think of a really simple setup. So you've got the 17 movements, locomotion, push, pull, hinge, squat, rotate, anti rotate.

Okay. And we'll probably do an article on the blog about this to give you more specific details to understand this at a later date, but you want to create a workout that's based around those movements. Does each of those exercises. Incorporate one of those movements. Okay? That is the simplest and easiest way to do it.

And if you can't get them all in, add a Turkish get up in there, and it covers them all if you're looking here. Because we do it all the time with our strength programming, right? With our guys. Yeah, absolutely. Exactly. Now, the more advanced guys can start splitting days into certain movements. Like, you know, Monday could be a push pull day.

A Tuesday could be a hinge squat day. Okay. [00:11:00] But we tend to put locomotion in all the exercises. We need some form of movement because strength training is quite static under your feet. You know, a lot of people, powerlifters and stuff, get quite static, static and heavy foot, heavy footed. So we don't make sure their feet are moving when they're doing certain things or they're pedaling or rowing or something on those lines to add the locomotion in.

But that's a really important aspect to understand is that we need to get these seven movements in. first, which leads into, well, when do you move out from being a beginner? Well, it's when he gets strong enough, right? I was going to say that 

Josh Kennedy: was going to be my final sort of summary. Some strength standards.

Can you, uh, throw 

James Breese: our way? Yeah, exactly. So let's think of this. So you've got to think of yourself as like, you may have been in the gym for. years. Right. But it doesn't mean you're an expert. And in the gym and the people we've worked with me, Josh, we work with professional strongmen. Like I [00:12:00] work with Andy Bolton, the first person ever to deadlift a thousand pounds.

Right. Think about that. That is ridiculous. Right. So when I was working with Andy, I was showing some of the movements he struggled with, but he could deadlift really well, a thousand pounds. That is elite strength levels. So where you think you're at right now, think you're strong. There are people out there who are way stronger, okay?

And that's the important thing to understand. So, in terms of strength and athleticism for sport and for cricket, we need to have like a baseline level of strength standards. So, a really good one, I think, to begin with, and for everyone to do is, can they do a two minute plank? Can they hold a plank for two minutes?

That's core strength, muscular endurance. Most people can't. Or they're holding for two minutes and they're shaking like crazy. That two minutes should be effortless. Not shaking like a leaf. Okay That's the first thing Second thing i'd look at now is push ups, right? Can men do 40 push ups unbroken? [00:13:00] That also means going down to the floor extending your hand like a t and coming back and pushing up So it's not cheap push ups, right?

You're doing proper push ups. You're doing down up about here 40 push ups Can you do it that gives you into like moderation right intermediate level? Strength. Women, 24. Yes, 24. And yes, do we get athletes doing these numbers? Yes, we do. Right. It is, you know, it's, it's based on solid strength training principles and technique.

Strength is a skill. Skill can be taught. Right, and that's the most important thing. It's not just just going down to the gym and just banging out push ups. Strength is a skill and that's what we try and teach and get across to most people here. And then if we're simply talking in simple, some other strength tests, let's talk about a deadlift.

We always talk about trap bar deadlifts because that we think they're safer and more appropriate and particularly for the taller athletes. [00:14:00] So for deadlifts, can men do one and a half times body weight for five reps? That's not elite. That's just strong, strong enough for women. 1. 25 times body weight for five reps.

Okay. And in terms of strength in your legs, well, we talk about squats. We have a 50 percent body weight squat test where the idea is, can you get a dumbbell or a kettlebell for 50 percent of your body weight? And can you do it for 25 reps unbroken? That's 25 reps unbroken. 

Josh Kennedy: Right? Some good muscular endurance there.

James Breese: Exactly. And that gives us into, like, we have other tests and we go through these tests and we do our performance analysis with people. However, these are the basic line fundamentals you need. Most people will struggle. I promise you most people will struggle. These are not elite strength tests. These are average intermediate level tests.

So if you have aspirations of going to a higher level, this is our starting point. 

Josh Kennedy: Absolutely. Could you just summarize some key points [00:15:00] before we wrap up, mate? 

James Breese: Oh, absolutely. Number one, don't load weight onto dysfunction. Stop training like a gym bro. Think of movements, not muscles. The seven fundamental human movements are locomotion, push, pull, hinge, squat, rotate, anti rotate.

And when it comes to strength training, make sure we have basic levels of strength first, that is key. So the standards we've just gone through here now, those are the levels here. And don't just jump to power, speed, agility stuff. This stuff at the bottom, this foundational strength allows us to progress faster at a higher rate.

and makes us more resilient to injury. 

Josh Kennedy: Exactly. Fantastic. That is it for today. Please don't forget to rate review and subscribe. If you'd like our free training plan, then go to cricket madness. com forward slash train. I remember our goal is to make you a better cricketer.