Like any athlete, cricket players also need to follow a strength and conditioning program that aims towards them peaking at certain stages of the year. By concentrating on a combination of strength training and CV workouts
Section 1
Principles of training
I need to take into consideration the different principles if I am going to design a circuit that is beneficial for the specific areas. Every different person has there needs. An example would be a long distance runner will need to work on their endurance and durability. So these specific areas will be the ones I hope to improve. I will have to study safety precautions so that I don't injure or hurt myself during the training program.
Specificity: the area of fitness that I am planning to improve is technical bowling and endurance, the area of skill that I plan to improve is: bowling (cricket). Finally the energy system that I will use is aerobic.
Progression: in my circuit I will train slow then build up. I am doing this because your body takes time to adapt to the increased demands because if you over work it there is an increased risk of pulling a muscles or another sort of injury.
Overload: Overload is where you work harder than usual because you're increasing the demand of your muscles working. As basic guides lines I will use the F.I.T.T system.
Reversibility: This section is not as important as the others. But it's where you reverse all of your training. E.G. the Christmas period.
Tedium: This section is to help stop the boredom of training and it is where you do something repeatedly and it gets tedious. So therefore variation is needed so that you do not get bored easily during the activities.
Explanation of F.I.T.T
F= Frequency: the amount of sessions you are training for.
I= Intensity: increase intensity e.g. 4 laps instead of 2 laps
T= Time: how long your sessions are: e.g. 1 session could be 30 minutes, then the next 60minutes long
T= Type: the type of exercise you do. You could change this to meet your demands.
Introduction about me: My name is Ben Warner. I am 15 years old and in my fitness program I am hoping to improve my bowling accuracy if successful. To do this I am going to use a circuit. The circuit will have 8-10 stations. The aspect of fitness that I would like to improve is endurance. I could do this by using endurance based stations. How ever I do want to improve my accuracy of my bowling so I need some of the stations to be skill based. So I will design a circuit taking the two skills into consideration.
The physiological effects of this training program will be tough. I will try to introduce something to stop me getting bored. I shouldn't be too hard on my body because I exercise regularly out side of school taking part in sporting activities. Because I will be using aerobic system I won't get to tired.
I am planning ahead because it is important to get myself prepared and study the dangers of getting injure during the program. So safety is key issue and is something I will look at.
I have chosen stamina because cricket is played over a long time. There are different sort of matches like twenty- twenty games which is 20 overs for each team to score as many runs as they can. Or there are games like test matches which can go over periods of weeks. So endurance is the ability to keep going over a set distance against resistance. So for me to be able to do this would be an amazing achievement. I have chosen cricket because I have just started training for it again ready for the next cricket season and have decided my bowling could do with a bit of a tidy up. If I can get my match fitness up early it would be great.
Section 2: My current fitness levels are just above average for a boy of my age. I am going to do this because cricket season is soon coming up and I have decided to get ready early this season and become an established player in my local men's team. I did play a few games last season resulting in highs and lows but overall I think I did well. Now I plan to sneak in and use this training program to help me achieve my goal.
I am going to move on now and explain my ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
Section 2: My current fitness levels are just above average for a boy of my age. I am going to do this because cricket season is soon coming up and I have decided to get ready early this season and become an established player in my local men's team. I did play a few games last season resulting in highs and lows but overall I think I did well. Now I plan to sneak in and use this training program to help me achieve my goal.
I am going to move on now and explain my current fitness levels and tell explain why they are at this level and how they may or may not be improved. I took a pre-test in my fitness and recorded the results.
Resting heart rate: - 96 per minute
Exercise 1: press-ups: 27
Exercise 2: Sit-ups: 23
Exercise 3: Squat thrusts: 26
Recovering rate: 128
I recently took part in the "bleep test" which is a 20 metre shuttle run and you have to run in between lines before the tape bleeps. I managed to get to level 11.2 out of 16. I think I could improve on this and when I do it again at the end of the training I can see whether my program has worked. To do a bleep test your endurance has to be quite good so this is how I can adapt my program. The specific endurance I will be working on is my muscular endurance because bowlers require both explosive strength and speed, combined with good muscular endurance, in order to be able to maintain a high number of over's. Poor fitness and muscular strength will result in inaccurate bowling, and greater risk of injury, especially for high speed bowlers.
I would say the amount of exercise I did in an average week about 30 slots. This could vary in other people's opinion because they might not class walking to school exercise. I do quite a lot of sporting activities. I play football about 3-4 times a week, cricket 1-2 times a week ( usually more if in the cricket season), rugby once a week and badminton every time I have it in P.E. when I play golf this involves a lot of walking, roughly about 3 miles maybe more. I enjoy these activities more as I have a better all round skill and knowledge of these games.
Exercise I do: the exercise I do is activities such as going on my trampoline or walking around school and general activities by keeping up with the demands of the environment.
Sporting activities I am good at in football is my ability to pass the ball across the pitch to a selected team mate. In rugby I am good at passing and tackling accurately. In golf I am good at putting and fair way drives. Finally more importantly in cricket I am good at batting, fielding and I hope to improve on my bowling.
I am specifically going to work on my upper body strength because it take speed and accuracy to deliver a good ball in cricket so I believe upper body strength is going to play a key role in my program.
Like any athlete, cricket players also need to follow a strength and conditioning program that aims towards them peaking at certain stages of the year. By concentrating on a combination of strength training and CV workouts throughout the winter / off season will enable you to perform with greater ability and reduce risk of injury during the summer season.
Section 3
To prevent, injury, and to enable a full season to hopefully be completed, its essential that a correct warm up and stretching routine be implemented prior to the start of each match, along with dynamic movements to enable bowlers and bats man to stay in optimum performance during long matches. There is dedicated section on stretching within our members area, designed purely for cricket players.
Along with building a good base of strength and fitness, the skills of the game should be worked on, ideally as a team in order to produce a higher level of combined skills, as cricket is a sport that is played in two forms, batting and fielding.
So to prevent injury I will need to include a warm up and a warm down to stop lactic acid forming on the muscles. To compete successfully in sports that require speed, athletes use a training technique called interval training. They exercise for a short period at a very fast pace, rest until they recover and then repeat these fast bursts until their muscles do not recover from the hard bursts. This is how lactic acid is formed on the muscles. Your muscles need energy when you exercise and they get their fuel from fat and sugar in your muscles and bloodstream. The sugar and fat are broken down through a series of chemical reactions each of which release a little energy at a time. If there is enough oxygen in your bloodstream, the sugar and fat are broken down into carbon dioxide and water which are blown off from your lungs when you breathe. When you exercise so vigorously that you can't get all the oxygen that your body needs, the sugar cannot be broken down to carbon dioxide and water and the sequence of reactions stops and a chemical called lactic acid accumulates in your muscles and spills over into your bloodstream. This causes your muscles to hurt and you to feel tired. So to prevent this from happening we will warm down (cool down) after the training circuit.
Warm-Up: in order to warm up you should take a light jog for a few minutes and try not to over work your muscles. After you have completed the light jog you should move on to stretching your muscles. This decreases the chance of pulling or even tearing a muscle, you should Hold each stretch for a minimum of 20-30 seconds, breathing slowly through your nose, aiming to exhale out through your mouth as you ease into the stretch. After you have completed your warm up you should now feel fine to move on the training.
Warm Down: Once you have finished any form of physical activity, you should gradually allow your heart rate and breathing to lower to a comfortable level, where talking can be performed with ease. Light aerobic exercise such as walking or easy indoor cycling are good, as both of these will allow you to hydrate yourself and also put on warm clothing.
Hold each stretch for a minimum of 20-30 seconds, breath comfortably, with deep breathes through your nose, and out via your mouth. This Is very similar to warming up. This prevents lactic acid building up on your muscles as I explained previously.
Other things I have to take into consideration are things such as correct footwear and apparatus. To prevent injury I need to access each bit of equipment I will use.
The equipment I will be using: 1 bench, 5x cricket balls, wooden stumps, safety mat and a stop watch to record the time. The main safety precaution needed here is to be careful when moving the bench. I wont need any more precautions because the cricket balls will only be bowled at the wickets. There wont be anybody in front of the wicket like in a normal game. The psychological aspects of this is to get yourself mentally and physically prepared for the challenge and to be aware of your own safety. Correct foot wearing is essential because if you don't wear sensible foot wear you could injure yourself. An example of this is if you wear to do a shuttle run in shoes instead of trainers then you put yourself at risk of getting a twisted ankle.
Section 4: the circuit
my circuit will be made up of 10 stations which will help me improve my bowling skills. It will also help me improve my upper body endurance. My circuit will be included in detail and will include the muscles and bones that will be worked. All of the stations will have a relation to my sport. The system chosen for my training program is aerobic. I will also have to take into account the principles of training so I don't overload my muscular system by over working them. So I wont work on the same muscles after each other.
Station 1: triceps dips
The diagram below is to help explain how that station works on each muscle, bone and system. This station will go on for 60 seconds in which I will do as many triceps dips as I can in the 60 seconds. This is to help my upper body strength. This may increase the speed of my bowling. I want to improve my bowling because the faster I bowl the more accurate it is. This does work on muscular endurance which is what I am also working on. The more tricep dips your triceps can take the better this is muscular endurance.
Station 2: 20 metre short sprints (explanation diagram below)
This station will be 2 minutes long and you will have to run between cones that will be set 20 metres apart as many times as you can. This will increase the run up power by increasing the strength of your leg muscles and the speed in which I can get between the cones. I have put this station second so that I didn't overload my arm muscles but it will test my muscular endurance again
Station 3: slow bowling at a cone.
The idea of this station is for me to slowly increase the speed of my bowling. Its will help me get my line and length. This station will also last for 2 minutes as it is aerobic as you need to run up to bowl. This station uses lots of bones and muscles but I will only list the main bones and muscles used. It does use a few bones and muscles that I use in station 2 but it will not overload them as I haven't used them that much so far.
Station 4: Press-ups
I will do as many press up as I can in 60 seconds (1 minute) so this exercise is aerobic as it requires oxygen. The press ups will help to increase the power in my muscles so I will be able to transfer it to my bowl. This also works on my muscular endurance in my upper body.
Station 5: sit up and catch ball
This station will be done repeatedly for 2 minutes so it is an aerobic exercise. The sit up and catch test will increase my hand-eye coordination and it will also strengthen the muscles in my abdomen. This will increase my power in my stomach and means I will be able to deliver a faster bowl. I have also made sure not to overload by using my abdominals rather than my legs or arms.
Station 6: Run Up and bowl technique
This station is design to help my spin bowling. The station will last for 1 minute. The idea of this station is to bowl as many spin bowls at the wicket in 60 seconds. It is a aerobic station because there is running involved.
Station 7: 5 Star jumps 20-M sprint. This station will last for a minute and the idea of it will be to improve stamina and continue working on my lower body and will improve my run up. This station is aerobic as I will be running. I don't want to overload my upper body so I have chosen to put this 7th in my circuit.
Station 8: Catch ball & throw at wicket
This station is to help my fielding technique. This is a simple station which will improve my throwing accuracy. It is a aerobic station. This station can also improve my hand-eye co-ordination which in a match will be very useful. The more catches in a match the better. I will again list the muscles used below.
Station 9: Shuttle run, pick up ball and throw at wicket. This is repeated for 2 minutes and is aerobic as there is a lot of running involved. This will help my throwing and improve my accuracy for my aim at the wickets in a fielding situation. In a game this could possibly run out an opponent. The muscles used will be listed below.
Slalom and catch ball and return: this is similar to my last station and will last for 2 minutes. This will improve my endurance and again will work on my throwing accuracy and this may overload my lower body as I have used it quite a lot in the last few stations.
