Josh Kennedy: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Cricket Matters podcast. Today we're talking about, are you broken, breaking or balanced? Uh, and James is going to clarify what the heck all that means, because I've got to say welcome back to James as well. You've been away for a week. Do you want to explain where you've been? Why, uh, you've been away and who you've been with?

Yes, very much 

James Breese: so. So I've been in the United States of America. So I flew into Washington, D. C. And I ended up going to Chatham, Virginia. Now you probably never heard of Chatham, Virginia. Which is four and a half hours south, close to five actually, of D. C. It's in the middle of nowhere. Uh, as I'm sure my good buddy Grey will now testify, it is redneck country.

It is great. Right? On so many different levels. But no, I was spending a week with Grey Cook. Now if you don't know who Grey Cook, he is one of the co founders of the FMS Functional Movement. Screen systems, and he's based in the States. He changed the way professional sports look at movement and injury risk and prevention.

We base a lot of our [00:01:00] work off his research and 30 plus years of data. And that's why we screen so many of our athletes with movement first before we load them into the weight room. Because Don't load dysfunction. Don't load dysfunction. We don't put, we don't put, you know, load onto dysfunction and dysfunction means movement.

Now you may know, what the hell is movement? Well, we categorize into different buckets. We'll do that another, another time. But the more efficient you are by moving, the more powerful you are, the more fast, the faster you are and the more resilient you are in terms of sports. Now, there's one interesting inline lunge test.

And if people score perfectly in the NFL on this number, it reduces injuries by over 777 different types of injuries, uh, compared to the A's. 

Josh Kennedy: I'm right in thinking that the, uh, the NFL were the first to introduce, uh, the FMS, weren't they? Screening at the Combine, yeah. So they 

James Breese: have stations at the Combine, they're screening [00:02:00] all these athletes, because the NFL Guys want to know their FMS scores, so they can be drafted because they want, they want this thing called a Reliant Injury Free Athlete.

Not just the highest performers, they want to make sure that they're well and they can perform and be ready anytime you want. But anyway, long story short, it's been a really great cook. He's been helping us refine our system of training with cricketers, which is great because he spent a lot of time working in professional baseball too.

So it's been a fantastic week and the theme for that week was this idea of, are the athletes we're working with broken, breaking or balanced? Okay. And this is why we screen everybody, whether they're doing technique stuff with us or they're doing strength training with us. We need to make sure we understand where they're at.

Now, broken, very simply, is the athlete or person in pain. If they're in pain, we have to fix the problem and identify where that problem is coming from because pain dictates how well you perform. [00:03:00] It impacts your technique. Your technique changes based on how much pain you are in. Okay?

Exactly. And no matter what you in pain You can't change it, and it's, it's the key, it's the key part of our whole system. We address the problems first, we fix the problem. Is it pain? Is it something else going on? We've got to address what it is. So, broken is a bucket we never put our guys into, they're broken.

So we've got to get them out of pain before we become further up the chain. Now, a vast majority of people are in the category called breaking. Right? This is the ideal car analogy of there's a wheel nut loose on your car, right? You're not aware of it and it may not go in the first week, but it could go six months down the line.

Most people fit into this category where that wheel may fall off any time possible and they may go into the, into the broken category. Huge percentage of people in [00:04:00] here and they're not even aware of it. Not even aware of it. So we need to identify these high risk factors. These are high risk athletes or people we're working with and we need to get them out of the stage before it's too late.

It's an injury prevention bucket, but also it ties into the efficiency of their movement, which carries over to their power, speed and agility when they're playing the game, too. So these are the three buckets we're looking at. So we're categorizing people into broken, breaking, which is just as a problem as much as broken, and then balanced.

These are what we call So, to identify someone in the breaking, that's where the assessments come in, right? Yeah, exactly. The same, same obviously, yeah, breaking and the pain thing. So we have pain screen, we have pain screens, we then have movement screens to see what's going to fall off, and then we also have this thing of balance.

Are they balanced? Not saying perfect. Right, is are they balanced? We're looking for, I'll give an example of balanced. So imagine at home or if you're watching on YouTube, [00:05:00] you try and touch your fingers behind your back. So one side you can touch your fingers, but then the other side, oh, no, we can't touch them at all.

Yeah, I see that all the time. Is it balanced, right? Maybe it's a consistency, but we can improve that side of things. We need balance. We're looking for no asymmetries. Okay? That's the key thing here. Now, are cricketers balanced? Because they have to rotate both ways now, particularly batsmen with their sweeps and reverse sweeps and how they're doing things.

That's a key point. So, we're screening people for pain. We're screening people for this idea of Are they potentially going to go into the pain bracket any time soon to make them more efficient? But the goal is to make them balanced. Not perfect, but we're trying to make these guys and athletes balanced.

So good is good enough. Yes, we'd like to see a higher level, but in whatever sport you're playing with, there will be some deficiencies and limitations. But broking, breaking a balance is the key phrase here now. Which category [00:06:00] do you fall under? Or, more importantly, do you even know which category you're falling under?

And that is the key thing we go back to time and time again. That was a great story. Um, so the team at FMS involved multiple different people, but Gray Cook and Lee Burton are the founders. Lee has been working with Gray for many, many years. And he's an example of, he went to the opticians recently. to get some new contact lenses, his annual checkup, which he goes every year for.

And they always screen his eyes. But guess what they also do? They monitor his blood pressure when he goes and sees them. Okay? And guess what they found? They found his blood pressure was off. Right? His blood pressure is higher than what it should be. So it was like an annual test. So the point is, is that we use screens not to screen for the sake of screening.

We do it as a checklist for us to make sure everything's okay. So you may not, you may be balanced today. But you may have a couple of days of travel, like I have over [00:07:00] on a flight, multiple thousands of miles of travel, right? A couple of days later, you may be in the braking category because something is off from your travel, right?

Something may happen, you may have slept funny, so your neck's all stiff and tight one day. And you may wake up, oh crap, but then you fall back into the braking category. So guess what these screens do? They become this, this checklist for us to go back to if something's not quite right, let's go back to default, let's see what's going on.

And then if we find that we're in there, well, how do we get back into balance as soon as we possibly can? So think about this. Are you broken? In pain? Are you breaking? Which is the more dangerous area because you may not be aware of it yet, and you may fall back into that broken category. Or are you balanced?

My argument is that most cricketers are in the breaking category. And the broken category, they don't even know what balanced is in terms of athleticism. 

Josh Kennedy: Well, I mean, the broken category, you might be able to, uh, identify yourself as that pretty quickly. Cause if you're in pain, you're in pain. So you're broken, right?

That's that one. It's, it's the breaking category, which is the [00:08:00] harder one in it. So you might be, I don't know, struggling with, uh, the, the sweep shot or something like that. You know what I mean? It's like, why can't I do this? But I've got a bit of stiffness in my hip or my back or something. Well, there's your, there's your answer.

Right, is, is, am I, am I along the right lines there? Yep, 

James Breese: absolutely. Exactly that. So that's what we've got to focus on here now. So just a very quick way for you guys to think about this is that if you're fitting to these three categories, well, you know which category, you know which category you need to be on and we're on hand to help people assess and screen and go through these, these, these trouble pains with you to make you more aware.

And that's what we're trying to do. To make people more aware of this idea of movement efficiency impacts cricket. It's not just about strength It's not just about training and just hitting more balls. It's the efficiency to get there. So there you go. 

Josh Kennedy: Absolutely. Absolutely fan Test it. We will, uh, no doubt do more on this, but ask yourself the question, am I broken?

Am I breaking or am I balanced? That is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe. And if you would like our free training plan, [00:09:00] then go to cricketmasters. com forward slash train. And remember our goal is to make you a better cricketer.