A full year cricket fitness plan: Your free cut out and keep guide
Planning your cricket fitness training is a difficult balance.
On one hand you know the benefits of strength, speed and endurance on your game. On the other hand you don't want to waste time training elements that have little crossover to the cricket pitch.
That's where the PitchVision Academy Fitness Plan comes in.
The spreadsheet outlines what kind of training is best for what time of year allowing you to focus on the important stuff at the right time. In sport science this is known as periodisation. However the terms are not crucial, the training is.
You can download the free plan in Excel format from here (Right click and Save target as...). If you don't have Excel on your PC (or the free Open Office) you can view it on Google Docs here.
How the Free PitchVision Academy Fitness Plan works
Your year is split into several 3-6 week periods called cycles. The name of the cycle is your focus for those weeks. For example, on a strength cycle your main aim is to improve your strength while maintaining other fitness elements.
Breaking it down further I have adapted the ideas of Vern Gambetta in that each cycle has 1-3 major training methods and 1-3 minor methods. You base your workouts around these methods depending how much time you have to train.
As everyone has different needs, time to train and equipment to use I have not included individual workouts. You will be able to get those shortly in our member section: PitchVision Academy.
What I have included is a rough guide to each training method so you can get started planning individual workouts yourself. You can also hand the spreadsheet to a qualified fitness professional or trainer to help you plan the workouts. Or use an off-the-shelf workout like Stronglifts 5x5 or Turbulence Training (both can be used at certain times of the year).
Here are some general principles to help with building your workouts:
- The principles of cricket fitness
- The principles of cricket power
- The principles of interval and speed training
- The principles of plyometrics training
- The principles of strength training
Limitations of the PitchVision Academy Fitness Plan
The main limitation of the plan is by design: It is a general guideline to what training to do when, not a series of workouts.
That aside, the other main limitation is that I only have done plans for the UK (Northern Hemisphere), India and Australia (Southern Hemisphere). This is where I need your help.
If you live in a country that is not covered by this plan, please email me and let me know when your competitive season is. I can then extend the plan to include the whole world.
I am especially interested to hear from you if you are in West Indies, Bangladesh and Pakistan but if your country is not covered just get in touch.
If you have questions first look at the Q&A here.
If that doesn't help, please put your questions down here I'll answer them as soon as possible.
You can download the free plan in Excel format from here (Right click and Save target as...). If you don't have Excel on your PC (or the free Open Office) you can view it on Google Docs here.
