00:00:00:01 - 00:00:11:12
Josh Kennedy
Welcome back to the Cricket matters podcast. Today we're talking about how pain affects technique when batting. James, you've managed to injure yourself. What have you done? Tell the listeners what it's done to your hand.

00:00:11:15 - 00:00:32:07
James Breese
Injuries affect my hand yet literally. So the other week, playing the second or third ball innings, I got the ball got absolutely smashed back at mid-on. And where the square is it on an old wicket. The ball reared up and it hit me literally on the wrist. Well, the bones and all that nice, nice lie.

00:00:32:07 - 00:00:36:29
Josh Kennedy
There. If you're not watching on YouTube, he's got a delightful look right on the bottom of his bat.

00:00:36:29 - 00:00:54:29
James Breese
And I had a seam mark on my finger. It was just like, bruised. Like you wouldn't believe it. He probably came out, so I was now. So I've pins and needles in my arm and fingers for 20 overs are to feel fine. Like to find like for the most of the time I just couldn't grip and I just let you know what to do with the ball coming near me.

00:00:54:29 - 00:01:00:13
James Breese
Because my body's just. No, just don't have the ball. Come on your knee. Because it was bloody hurting the side.

00:01:00:16 - 00:01:02:24
Josh Kennedy
Are you sure you haven't fractured that.

00:01:02:26 - 00:01:19:04
James Breese
Well, I don't think have I had I did, my sister got bruising medical doctor. Like I had a look at it and she's not. I don't think it's fine. So anyways, it was what I did two weeks ago. So obviously a week passed and it was like if the swelling was coming down, I was able to do things.

00:01:19:04 - 00:01:37:15
James Breese
The grip is is back to almost normal now, but a coaching session for myself and Steve was doing some underarms here and stuff that was going on my legs and stuff. I was playing on the ONS, on the on, so I don't know if I normally play really well. I last seen some leading edge is my bat face was turning in my hand.

00:01:37:17 - 00:02:08:23
James Breese
Now I thought my hand was fine. I thought it's all fine to do it. But what happened was I was always like, change what I was, you know, it's it was clear we had what was going on with the bat. So you can't work it out. I mean, like, well, it's the top hat issue. I'll go. What's interesting because I hurt my hand and then so I tested my grip strength right on what we had to do off of that session because we changed doing top and drills, doing sweeps and and reverse sweeps and various different things in practice that I went home, I tested it and a good test.

00:02:08:23 - 00:02:25:03
James Breese
And the guy for me is if I can bottoms up, kettlebell press, 20 kilos. Left to right, which I, which I can normally do, I couldn't do it my right side, I literally couldn't physically grip and I was doing some of the grip has grip and grip work. I've got here and tested my grip strength. It was down.

00:02:25:03 - 00:02:42:13
James Breese
It was well, well down to where it normally was. So the point was I like a weaker no, but pain is stopping me from using my hand effectively and the less news is that that pain in my hand affected my grip in my bat, which was then totally off.

00:02:42:20 - 00:02:43:10
Josh Kennedy
Technique.

00:02:43:10 - 00:03:07:07
James Breese
Technique. So and we keep saying this time and time again, it's just a little anecdotal case study of how something as simple as a severely bruised, hopefully thumb and wrist where it couldn't grip the top hand here affects how you play the game. Now imagine if that's your back. If that's a stiff neck, stiff shoulder, stiff hip pain, anger killer using lots of people.

00:03:07:07 - 00:03:37:26
James Breese
The Achilles issues. Yeah. And you play those. Yeah. At the moment. How will that affecting your bowling and performance without you even knowing it. So it's more of a case of a conversation being you today saying look, pain affects everything in your day to day life, but more importantly, when you're trying to play perform on a weekend at a club level or international level, if you're playing through pain, it could impact your technique, which impacts performance, impact your team, and impact your personal long term, averages.

00:03:37:26 - 00:03:51:12
James Breese
Let's say that because that's also important with people, if they will consistently play before. So again, assess pain. Are you in pain? What is happening. And don't discard it and thinking it'll be okay. I can play through it.

00:03:51:15 - 00:04:08:16
Josh Kennedy
Yeah I was going to address it. You've got to do something about it because we had, one of our, female cricketers with the, with the German team suddenly had splints, shin splints, and she and we, we hadn't, she hadn't mentioned how bad it was. And obviously it was affecting this just like. Right. Well, we've got to do something about this straight away.

00:04:08:16 - 00:04:21:29
Josh Kennedy
So we've got some mobility and shin splint fix today when she and then once you start to do that every day, you know, ideal world couple of times a day, then obviously, you know, she helped her recover and she's doing a lot better now I would help to perform.

00:04:22:01 - 00:04:39:24
James Breese
Exactly. And then I get another go. A little pain story this week. How are you? It's let's let's call him out on the podcast. Right? Because if he came to me saying I got really bad knee pain and I think I'd look at, but it's not, it's not going away. And I got him on into my literally just around the corner for me.

00:04:39:24 - 00:05:00:29
James Breese
So he came into my kitchen. I've never seen a grown man sweat quite so profusely in all my life, while looked at a couple of things, and we just found that his hips were locked down, his ankles were completely in a mess and everything was clean. And the life is is hamstring. You know, the main biceps from all this in the back was just clinging on for dear life along with all the calf muscles.

00:05:01:01 - 00:05:20:24
James Breese
So by release, trying to release that, to leave that alleviate the pressure on his knee, we're hoping to see improvement. But the point was he can't bowl because he's in pain, and if he can't fall because he's in pain, it means it could affect his technique and his body will compensate. And if his body compensates for too long, long term, it alters your technique altogether.

00:05:20:27 - 00:05:38:21
James Breese
And that's the problem with you you know. So you may have. Good. Take the technique now with pain comes along. It has one goal to make you move as efficiently as humanly possible. Right. And protect the brain, keep you alive. So why would the brain want to move on to pain. It just doesn't. Yeah. So find your way around again.

00:05:38:23 - 00:06:01:21
James Breese
Yeah. So again short and sweet podcast this week I have purely personal anecdote in terms of playing and how grip strength which we talk about all the time, the hand issues affects your backs technique and back face and how other things may affect your technique. And if you don't address them soon. Yeah, I could have long term consequences that you're not even aware of.

00:06:01:24 - 00:06:16:06
Josh Kennedy
Yeah. So just quickly though, before we wrap up, would you advise people to go and get a proper sports massage, maybe go see a physio, depending on what the problem is? Of course, obviously do some, you know, local mobility, stuff like that. Anything you can do.

00:06:16:08 - 00:06:42:29
James Breese
Yeah, absolutely. Firstly, first things first, let's take the sensible option. If there is pain right. Pain shouldn't be present. Seek medical voice advice. Don't go to Doctor Google or doctor YouTube going this is this. These three exercises will fix your lower back pain this these things because it's they're just guessing. You know you're just guessing. It needs to find the root cause of things and what we say time and time again to stop chasing pain is a good friend.

00:06:42:29 - 00:07:04:24
James Breese
Perry Nicholson always says pain is usually a symptom, not the cause. And you seek professional medical advice. Then if that fails, then we'll look at your habits. Look at your daily routine. Maybe it is a sport that a lot of people times a lot of people are offering sports massage in the moment. A lot of people need sports massage because their muscles are so tight and we can't get things working again.

00:07:04:24 - 00:07:25:10
James Breese
If your muscles are so tightly wound up knotted, you know, you've got to address that. You know, let me do a podcast titled That Shit Shot to something. Long as we do this, if your neck is tight, you know, all your muscles, your hamstrings are tight. You know you ain't gonna move efficiently. You move like a robot and like in like in your in a pair wellies or like in concrete boots.

00:07:25:13 - 00:07:29:28
James Breese
So, you know, take care of yourselves. That's the main thing for long. You cycling?

00:07:30:00 - 00:07:44:02
Josh Kennedy
Yeah, exactly. Take care of yourself. Address that pain, guys. Don't ignore it. That is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe. And if you would like a free training plan then go to Cricket matters. Dot com forward slash train. And remember our goal is to make you a better cricketer.