Northants putting faith in a fitness guru from football
ANSWERS to the question of when cricketers became ‘athletes’ varies greatly depending on who you ask, but in this modern era of sports science there is no escaping the pre-season grind if you’re a county professional.
And Northamptonshire players may have been dreading it more than usual, with a new man in Chris Lorkin at the helm as the club’s head of strength and conditioning.
Arriving from Aston Villa FC over the New Year, having worked for Norwich City before that, Lorkin is relishing a new challenge in cricket with the reigning T20 champions.
But with a relatively small squad of players to keep fit, Lorkin concedes his new role comes with some added pressure.
“I’m at a time in my career where I wanted a change, and the chance to challenge myself in a new sport and lead my own programme was too good to turn down,” he said.
“The success that Northants had last year was an appealing factor as well. Potentially the size of the squad adds a bit of pressure, but that is the job I’ve been brought in here to do.
“The big change is the season itself and when the team actually plays. With football the lads are getting battered for 11 months of the season, but for cricketers it’s six months so we’ve got some time out of the season when we can do some proper physical work.
“We can make the lads stronger and fitter to be able to get them through that six months.”
Having been used to working with Premier League football’s prima donnas, Lorkin may be looking forward to the more laidback environment of county cricket.
But with the new fixture schedule placing the three formats of the game in distinct blocks of time, Lorkin is adamant strength and conditioning will be more important than ever.
He added: “The principles of training between football and cricket are fairly similar to be fair. It’s just about making little tweaks here and there to ensure the athletes are prepared for all three formats of the game.
“Of course there used to be different formats of the game chucked in at different stages, but having these new blocks of matches, it means we can prepare to peak for certain times.
“We’ll ramp up the intensity heading to the T20 for example. We want to hit the ground running and the right strength and conditioning training can really give teams an advantage.”