Josh Kennedy: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Cricket Matters podcast. Today's topic is all about how the best cricketers train during off season. James, good morning. How are you doing? Morning. I'm very good, thank you. Sound support Michael Morgan.
James Breese: Exactly. Yeah.
Josh Kennedy: YeahOr, why have you
James Breese: got your Ggl Morgan hat on? Before we dive into the podcast, just got promoted to the first division of the county championship for the first time, I think in 21 years.
So shout off to everybody at the Morgan coaches, players, staff, and all involved for all the hard work and the effort they've done so, yep. Representing massively today.
Josh Kennedy: Congratulations Glen Morgan. Uh, the season is done. It's now off season. You're gonna have to train well to stay in the division. Not
James Breese: quite done because they've still got a game or two left.
They still got a game two left. Yeah. Yeah. Really. But it's unlikely to be played because it's absolutely Chucky narrow rain the next few days. So
Josh Kennedy: yes, the, uh, the weather forecast in Britain is not great. Uh, the next few days is it anyway? Yep. So let's do it. How the best cricketers train during off season.
What would be, [00:01:00] uh, your initial bullet points Recovery.
James Breese: But of one, everything, recovery, strength, cardio, nutrition, pain management, cracky, the list goes on. But we can hypothesize as much as we want to. We can theorize as much as we want to. What gets done must first get measured. Ooh, nice. And we don't know where we are starting from unless we assess, and you may have heard us say about this time and time again on the podcast and all our videos, if we don't assess, we are just guessing.
So don't guess we must have used that line about a million times. I know. But we still have to keep reminding people about that every time I come and see them. Yep. And get hands on with them. It's a case of, I don't know. I dunno how to help you. You can literally watch all the YouTube videos in the world, read all the books and articles.
It's paralysis by analysis in some respects from a lot of people.
Josh Kennedy: Do [00:02:00] all the technique drills in the world that you want as well, but you might not get any better. 'cause if you don't know what's wrong, no, exactly. And that is why we
James Breese: always, always, always start with what we call a performance analysis. And we have two types of performance analysis.
The performance analysis and performance analysis and performance analysis Pro. The difference between the two is there's a lot more video work done with the pro level. Right. That is the crux of it. Mm-hmm. But during the analysis we are taking. I'm just saying what we do. So you can go and do this yourself.
I'm not saying you come and take the analysis with us. You can if you'd like to, but if just so you know what we do, you can go and do it yourself at home now or anytime the next few weeks to assess what you need to do in your off season. So the key things are we are taking, we're taking your weight measurements.
How, how heavy are you now? Right? What's your body fat percentage? Yeah. What is your blood pressure? Where's your resting heart rate?
Josh Kennedy: Mm-hmm.
James Breese: Because over the course of a season, people tend to put on weight and actually get deconditioned a little bit over the season. So we need [00:03:00] to manage that. Yeah. So do you need to go in a weight loss plan over the next few months?
Right. That's the first thing. Second thing is, are you in pain? We do a number of screening processes for, are you in pain over the whole body? Because if there's pain present, that is your number one priority, like bar none. Yeah, absolutely. Find the cause. Absolutely. Try and fix it, because pain is not good.
Pain is not weakness leaving the body. It is stupidity. Right. Let's just,
Josh Kennedy: let's just put it down at that because the issue, the issue with pain is your body finds, always finds the path of least resistance, right? It wants to just be in homeostasis, so it's going to alter something to get you around that pain, which is gonna affect.
Technique it's gonna affect Exactly,
James Breese: isn't it? Absolutely. Exactly. And you don't, aren't aware that you're doing it right. Yeah. That's the worst thing. So we need to analyze for pain to see how it's impacting your technique. And that's what we do before any tech technical analysis is we make sure there's, there's no pain present, because it'll then give us a better [00:04:00] explanation as to why you're doing such things in your technique, okay?
Mm-hmm. So pain is the first thing. Is there pain, yes or no? If there's pain, that is the primary, uh. Plan for your off season? Yeah. Is to get you out of pain. Then we look in what we call movement screening. Okay. If there's no pain present, we can then go into what we call movement screening. Now, this is done at the highest level of professional American sports and mostly other top European sports too.
So major league baseball, N-F-L-N-B-A. NHL they all use the FMS testing criteria as part of the NFL on part of their drafting processes. They wanna know how robust and movement capable the athletes are. If you score poorly there mm-hmm. There's a high risk of injury and lower risk of you lower what?
Increased performance,
Josh Kennedy: uh, uh, output it. Um, it's, it's hugely vital in it. 'cause like, you know, an NFL player at the combine, if they score poorly and they've got a big. [00:05:00] Increased risk of injury, they might not get picked up by anyone. No. Simple
James Breese: as that. Well, no, 'cause it's, it's an asset they're investing in.
So if this asset's gonna cost X amount of money, they'll know what their return on investment is. That sounds, yeah, it's as simple as that. And what I find, I find brilliant is that there's a bench press. A test in the NFL in in the NFL, right? It's can you do, how many reps can you do with a certain given weight?
Right? What they're looking for is, can you do over 20 reps now? It's not about how strong you are, it's how durable the shoulders are. I didn't realize that Greg Gray told me that. Uh, during the thing. That's why they test the shoulder, the high rep bench. It's
Josh Kennedy: muscular. Yeah, it's a muscular endurance test.
20 reps, isn't it? Yeah. Muscular
James Breese: endurance, serious
Josh Kennedy: muscular endurance.
James Breese: But it's all about the function of the shoulder Can the shoulder with hand that, uh, with, you know, with withstand it because it's a tough, tough sport. Lots of collision impacts. Mm-hmm. Uh, lots of issues going on. So we do the movement screening because it's a performance indicator.
It's also a limitation factor for most [00:06:00] people, which could be to do with their technique. For example, they could struggle with rotation. They could struggle with lunging. They could struggle with the basic deep squat or the hinge pattern. And the reason we look at the hinge when you're batting is because you don't have your knees over your toes because it reduces performance and reduces power output.
So look, there's lots of things we're talking about here now, but these are the. These are the ways we go about it to assess an athlete before we even look at basic power, which is what we call the Meg ball throw, and how far they can broad jump. We don't need to test too much, but it's an idea of giving us what their capabilities are in terms of testing before we look at technique, which then may explain why they're doing the technique that they're doing, because there's the body technique connection in everything that you do.
Mm. If your body won't let you do it. Then that's why you probably can't do it when you're, when you're batting or bowling. So take the hand break off is what we always say
Josh Kennedy: to perform better. Yeah, exactly. Could we just quickly wind back before we go on, just give people some, 'cause we mentioned [00:07:00] resting heart rate weight.
Waist height and all that. Can we just give people some benchmarks that they need to be looking out for? Like go, okay, well my resting heart rate's 62, is that good? They, they don't know unless we give 'em some benchmarks. Yeah, absolutely.
James Breese: So an elite athlete, elite endurance athletes sit between 40 and 48 beats per minute.
Okay. Uh, in most cases, so if we're looking at that level of performance, we know that resting heart rate indicates good cardiovascular health. Combine that with blood pressure. Yeah. We know you're systolic and dis and systo and distal readings. Sto systolic. Yeah. Sorry, I can't even speak this one. It's been one, it's been one of those days.
Alright, we're looking at your readings again at Elite Endurance Levels. They're about 1 0 5 over 65.
Josh Kennedy: So, you know, okay, but most, most people we're talking to here are not elite. So what are, what are we looking at?
James Breese: 1, 1 10 over 68, 70. You know that that'd be a good indicator, is what we're looking for. But again, we wanna strive for better improvement [00:08:00] and the better those numbers are potentially, the better your health will be long term too.
So there's a lot of factors going on here, but. And the other thing is, are you overweight? Very simply, get a tape measure. Measure your waist just above the belly button, right? And divide that by your height. So if you're, you are. Waist is 70 centimeters and you are 173 centimeters tall. Divide 70 centimeters by 1 7 3, and it becomes below N 0.5, the ratio not 0.5.
Then we're looking at a, uh, a normal weighted. Body fat percentage of a human being.
Josh Kennedy: Basically you want that ratio to be half 0.5 or under, ideally under 0.5.
James Breese: That's it As an as an idea. That's the sort of thing we're looking at. Cool. And me Both throws are slightly different for men and women. Yeah. Me both throws.
Same thing is now is look, it's a, so look, I start with the broad jump, super simple. Can we jump a minimum of 110% your height? So two feet on the ground, both [00:09:00] hands, you know, how far can you jump? If it's 110% height, you've entered base level, but we wanna see 120% with our best athletes. Minimum. That's the expression of power from the ground up.
'cause power starts from the ground up. Okay? Mostly in cricket. Then we have med ball throws, which tells us how you transfer. So we're looking at upper body power in some respects, but through the eyes of your feet and through the core. So if you can't transfer that power from your feet through the core to your hands and throw it.
Then we have issues, particularly if there's discrepancies left and right. So men need a four kilo med ball to throw minimum of 10 meters, both sides with a very small discrepancy of less than 10%, both sides. And then women need to do the same distance, but with two kilos. So again, it gives us a little indications as to where our starting point is.
Josh Kennedy: Uh, there we go. Cool. So once you've assessed and you're not guessing anymore. [00:10:00] What that, obviously then you will know what your priority is, of course. But, uh, then strength training, I guess, which is, you know, something that a lot of people simply don't
James Breese: do. Potentially. Yeah. And again, it comes from the same thing.
So let's assume we have a healthy athlete that moves well, and let's, let's say they, let's assume now that they, they've scored well on the, on the. Testing kit on in terms of movement, they, uh, not in any pain and all health markers are good. Right. So they're not a fat loss client essentially. Yeah. So we're now looking at is it a strength issue or is it a power issue they have, right.
Yeah. So by doing the med ball test, we can get a rough idea. Of what that needs to be. A lot of cases, most people are strength deficient in cricket, right? They haven't got enough baseline strength, which you need. 'cause you need both strength and power, right? So which one do you need to work overall base baseline strength first, I think comes first.
A lot of people will say the same thing. You can't build power on Rocky [00:11:00] Foundations strength. So I'd say that the off season has gotta be around developing baseline strength so you can then maintain it the rest of the season. In that sense up until enough is enough. So once you have enough strength levels, then you can just maintain it.
Then the, then the emphasis is always on power development and speed, right? Yeah, because we're not try and get stronger and stronger and stronger as a, you know, the law of diminishing returns in terms of some sports. We don't need to be a power lifter and keep chasing prs. No, we need enough strength to play the sport that we need to do and then try and be as explosive as possible with that strength.
Right. Big, big
Josh Kennedy: difference. Yeah, exactly. As fast and explosive as possible. 'cause those are the, those are the qualities you lose quickest. Yeah. So you need to be training like speed and power. Right Up until. Yeah, and and obviously try
James Breese: and maintain that within season as well. Exactly. With low volume seasons.
So we've got that. So again, that's a, I would say for most cricketers they need to move well, if they're moving well, we prioritize strength in the off [00:12:00] season. Right. Unless they haven't enough strength already, which again comes through testing. We know what their testing levels, numbers are. And then focus on power as we get close to the season, to build that, to, to develop and maintain that level of strength.
So it does, it sounds simple, but it's not, it's actually more complex if you wanna go down this rabbit hole of doing it properly. But most, most players in the off season need to focus on strength work, focus on compound lifting, right? To some extent. Not necessarily barbell work, but compound lifts using kettlebells or dumbbells.
Big thing of what we do, and then adding some endurance work, some aerobic endurance to build us up and get us ready for the season. I'm not saying that is interval training. I'd say I'd encourage more longer piece endurance work in the off season. 'cause we're not gonna do that pre-season or in season.
Right. So we build it towards those levels. So strength, longer bits of aerobic work up until Christmas, and then from Christmas to [00:13:00] the start of the season, more shorter intervals getting us ready for sprint based stuff and moving forwards. But again, we're hypothesizing here as opposed to like, yeah, prescribing an actual.
Prescription, um, prescription for somebody Yeah. To actually follow here. So there's lots of, lots of theory, but hopefully it's giving an idea of what the way we think about things in terms of training and what people should be doing in the off season. Exactly.
Josh Kennedy: And essentially it all comes back to that.
Assess. Assess first. Exactly. Then you'll know, uh, meet
James Breese: yourself where you're at. Exactly. And very, very simply, are you, you know, without assessing. Question for you, question for everyone out there. Are you in pain? Yes or no? If you're in pain, priority number one, right? Are you overweight? Right? Ask yourself that question.
Right. Stand front the mirror. Well, that might be part of the reason that you're in pain if you are overweight. Exactly right. Potentially the two go hand in hand. Right. Those are the two fundamental questions. Are we in pain? Are we overweight? Because we can make people better athletes by [00:14:00] just by fixing those two things, and that's the simple side of things.
Josh Kennedy: There we go. Uh, hope you enjoyed that guys. That is how to train in the off season. That is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe. And if you would like our free training plan, then go to cricket matters.com/train. And remember, our goal is to make you a better cricketer. I.