‘‘I have done 1.2 million squats in my career’’

The above quote was taken from Paul Nixon, ex Leicestershire and England wicket-keeper, who ran a course I attended this week on coaching cricket to children. This proved to be a great day and credit must be given to Paul for providing a fun, relaxed and stimulating course. 

Paul Nixon in action for England  

Below are some of the take home messages that I took from the day:

1    Being agile in cricket: the ability to fall, turn and move quickly off the ground is central to any good cricketers match preparation. Paul demonstrated this a lot while showing us wicket-keeping drills and concluded that crickets need to be flexible and athletic enough to put their bodies into sometimes awkward and challenging positions. Many of the drills we completed were similar to gymnastic type movements; children find gymnastics fun and it’s a great way to test our bodies to move from one position to the next.

2   Head movement: Not just for wicket-keepers but for all fielders this is a crucial take home message. For your body to move quickly towards the ball your head moves first, this provides your central nervous system with the information on where to go and how to get there. This message can be relayed across all sports which require speed and agility; the head moves first and the rest of the body follows.

3    Get into good habits early: For children, getting into good habits early is fundamental for success. These habits can be in the form of nutrition, match preparation, goal setting and balancing sport with school work. However, Paul focused on warm ups in relation to this point. Getting the children to jog round the pitch, have a few stretches and a few throw downs is not preparing the child physically and mentally for competition. Promote decision making and movement skills in a warm up, this will get children into good habits early.

4    5 min of quality is better than an hour of rubbish nets: This was a very important point which I’m sure is faced by every cricket coach at some point, how do make net practise productive and worthwhile for the children? Much net practise is of such low quality that it is almost worthless. In some cases it can be damaging to technique by reinforcing bad habits. The most worthless situation is having 6 boys in one net, batting 10mins each in rotation, facing a mixed bag of bowling in rapid fire, where bowlers are expected to bowl for the 50mins they are not batting. The ideal number for a net is 3 or 4. This can be achieved, even if there are too few facilities, by involving players in different forms of practise within the same session. Treat nets like a circuit so that players have an opportunity to be exposed to a variety of training situations.

5    ‘‘I have done 1.2 million squats in my career’’: Even for someone who has played 23 years of professional cricket, this is a lot of squats and therefore places a huge strain on the body. This quote highlights the physical requirements of a wicket-keeper, but also reinforces a key concept that alignment and control are vital in cricket. Therefore, getting wicket-keepers doing endless amounts of squats because this is a common movement pattern will not help their long term development. Teaching correct posture, maintaining lower back and anterior/posterior muscle balance however, will keep them on the pitch and not consistently needing massages or rehab. Bowlers are very much the same, a huge amount of strain and force is placed through the body, and because of this many bowlers are lopsided and have uneven alignment. Placing more strain on the body in the form of weight training and high repetitions will only increase the chances of injury. Get the body aligned; get it moving well under control and then place resistance upon it.

Athleticism and Cricket going hand in hand