Thank you again for this great discussion gents. I found the content on load management and the practical observations regarding training sessions (the abuse of athletic fast bowlers on the altar of fat middle order batsmen...classic!). I have to respectfully disagree with Nathan regarding the relative utility of Olympic lifting for fast bowlers (or batsmen for that matter)...it's a hard pass for me. He mentions in passing that "while you can make arguments about transfer, and yadayadayada..."; this is a case of massively understating the obvious! Arguably the most important sports science principle of athlete training is the SAID principle (specific adaptation to imposed demands), which basically holds that we adapt in specific ways (not general ways) to the kinds of challenges we throw at our bodies and minds. If you want to be a great fast bowler, spending a shedload of time on learning how to serve a tennis ball is probably not the best approach. The transfer of skill acquisition from hitting a tennis ball to bowling a cricket ball is simply not there. So, in theory at least the best approach would be to spend 100% of training time directly training the skill that we're trying to improve. Why don't we do that then? Simple. High intensity athletic pursuits (like fast bowling, javelin throwing, weighlifting) quickly overwhelm the body's capacity to adapt, and we start to break down, rather then build up. So, rather than simply rest in between high intensity bowling sessions (which is still a good strategy, by the way, if not the optimal), we try to build up a strength or skill that has direct transfer into bowling without taxing the body's ability to recover directly from bowling. This is all to the good. Running clearly has a direct transfer to fast bowling (as discussed by Nathan in an earlier section), so it is a great candidate for non-specific training. Olympic lifting, not so much. Moving a heavy weight, in a highly technical way, is very movement specific (e.g. getting great at Cleaning a 100kg barbell does not necessarily translate into a faster velocity of throwing a 5 and a half ounce cricket ball for example; even if the musculature involved in both movements is similar...the weight on the bar and the speed of the movements are simply too dissimilar to elicit a direct transfer). What's worse, your spending a whole heap of energy (physical and mental) and incurring a potential risk from non-cricket activity. As a coach, I would be more than mildly displeased if my gun fast bowler missed a half season due to a disc injury he incurred from trying to get under a fast clean! I believe that cricket coaches and strength coaches need to take a Hippocratic oath along with our doctoring brethren...first do no harm! As I said previously, if resting between intense bowling sessions is the default condition, you need to ensure that any additional training (a) significantly enhances bowling capacity and (2) does so without incurring an uneccessary level of injury risk. For me, running training, body-weight exercises (e.g. chins, push-ups, dips) and low-intensity bowling drills fit those criteria where Olympic weightlifting (and for that matter powerlifting training) does not. Btw, I have nothing against heavy weight training as such (I have done it myself for 25 years straight)...just don't see the favorable risk/reward ratio with respect to fast bowlers. Apologies for spending so much time disagreeing about a topic, when I agree with the remaining 99%, but I think it's an important point. Thank you again gentlemen for a terrific resource!
Its GPP so SAID/specificity is a straw man. I've never had an athlete hurt themselves using weightlifting variations and it's not hard to coach so completely disagree with your risk/time argument.
@@NathanKiely Thanks for your reply. Whether for GPP or SPP, Olympic lifts are a massive systemic and musculo-skeletal stressor. That's assuming, of course, that they're being trained progressively. I suppose you could train them at a lower intensity with minimal progression, but then, what would be the point? You'd be better off focusing on aerobic systems in that case. Also, progress in Oly lifts is almost exclusively due to neural factors in novices (i.e. the brain gets better at the lift before the body makes structural changes). This is where the SAID principle comes in. Where's the utility in teaching novices a technically challenging sequence of lifts that won't elicit structural changes (e.g. muscular hypertrophy, tendon strengthening) until a high level of skill is attained? In relative terms, you'd be better off focusing on simple motor tasks with direct transfer (running, calisthenics on the shoulder girdle, plyo, weighted bowling etc.). Better bang for your buck for a given chunk of time. As for the risk of injury (and I am speaking from experience here), if you are training people to Olympic lift and they're not getting injured then either (a) you're the luckiest guy in the world or (b) they're not training anywhere close to their capacity, which again begs the question, why bother in the first place. There are plenty of very good (and boring) GPP modalities that require very little skill acquisition and allow for aggressive progression schemes. Olympic lifting is not one of them (nor is CrossFit for that matter...whatever I've said with respect to Oly lifting for fast bowlers would apply two-fold to CrossFit!). But, I'm not going to tell you how to suck eggs. If what you're doing is preparing your athletes more effectively than alternative GPP means, and they're avoiding injury, I can just scratch my head and suck it up. All the best to you!
@@amiafish If you'll allow me, I've got some thoughts on your current perspective. To your first point 'massive' systemic and musculo-skeletal stressor' - Is there any research to back up this claim or is this your personal opinion. Second, the body responds well to stress, so stress is necessary for adaptation. Thirdly the aerobic system and olympic lifts are used to develop different physical capacities and are almost at different ends of the Intensity Spectrum. Reading your comments my first assumption is you're afraid of using olympic lifts? Is this correct? Nathan talked about instilling a anti-fragile mindset in his athletes so he would for starters never place a blanket rule on a number of movements because if fear. Nathan already mentioned O Lifts are GPP - so they represent a fantastic bang for your bang. If you're talking from your own experience with injuries, then your experience only represents 1 single viewpoint. And there could be many factors that contribute to injury. It is not Olympic lifts = Injury. And your claim this is the case has no evidence. And if Nathan and I coached based on our experience we would be terrible coaches as our own bias would get in the way of ever learning outside of our own experience. And i think we can agree when coaching a fast bowler, we need to do whats best for them, not what was best for us based on our own experience. Also I've had conversations with 2 coaches at the elite level who use olympic lifts and they have had no injuries. So from their experience and knowledge, they are a useful method to develop certain physical capacities. So the idea theres a risk of injury is a fallacy or likely comes from a fear. And if you're worried about injuries - like Nathan said, there hasn't been any. Hope this gives you some useful critiques to this discussion
@@TheFastBowler Thanks for your reply. There's a bit of "lost in translation" going on here, which is inevitable in these sorts of technical debates, so I'll try to clarify my points. Firstly, if you go back and read my point about Olympic lifts being massive stressors, you'll note that I qualified this by saying that this was the case only if they were being trained progressively (meaning a deliberate and ongoing increase in intensity, load and volume over time). If Olympic lifts are simply taught as movement patterns, but are then loaded and periodised in a passive way (i.e. not pushing the lifter to constantly increase their personal bests and work capacity), then injury concerns are effectively nullified or at least significantly reduced, but so too is the training effect! If you remove the stress, you don't elecit the training effect. Secondly, with all due respect, to ask me to stump up "research" that proves that heavy, progressive Olympic lifting is a massive stressor on the CNS and the muscles/bones is well, like me asking you "do you have any research that shows that running high volumes on hard surfaces can casue patellofemoral syndrome"? That is, it wouldn't be a question of what research I could show you, but what research I should leave out! Olympic lifting, powerlifting, even bodybuidling-style "hypertrophy" training are all systemic and musculo-skeletal stressors, and the magnitude of the stress is mediated by the intensity of the loading, the volume of the loading, and the frequency of the loading. This is common knowledge. I am certain Nathan would not contest this point. Regarding your assumption that I am afraid of Olympic lifts, I can assure you that this is not the case. Along with powerlifts (Deadlift, Squat, Bench Press), the Olympic lifts (and their variations such as hang cleans, overhead squats etc.) are all excellent tools for strength and conditioning. I just happen to think that they are not crash hot with respect to GPP for fast bowlers (and of course, are positively shite as SPP). As I mentioned in my previous post, the highly technical nature of Olympic lifting means that the early gains in performance are almost entirely neural...and since cricketers don't typically have the time or inclination to get under a barbell 3 times a week or more, they will not progress beyond novice status until well into the off-season, if at all. As such, the structural adaptations (whether anaerobic or aerobic) that would have been aquired much quicker with more conventional training means (e.g. running, simpler resistance exercises) are not achieved in the same chunk of time. It's an opportunity cost question...for a given amount of time and effort, I could do X and get these resuls, or I could do Y and get those. It's not that Olympic lifting is bad, per se...it's just that it doesn't give the bang for buck that other training means do (with respect to GPP). With respect to Olympic lifting and injury (whether soft tissue, tendinopathy, spinal etc.), the sport is literally rife with short, medium and long-term lay-offs due to injury. By the way, this is not unique to Olympic lifting; powerlifting, CrossFit...even "bodybuilding" are all training means that cause regular injuries to participants if they are trained progressively. Olympic lifting is problematic in unique ways. Whereas powerlifters tend to run into problems due to the magnitude of the loads they lift, Olympic lifters have to contend with the ballistic acceleration and decceleration of loads (much like fast bowlers, actually!) which presents a whole host of potential injuries to muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones. Again, whether or not these injuries eventuate will be more a function of the loads, volumes and frequencies of the lifts rather than the lifting modality as such. If the loads are kept manageable, injuries will be held to a minimum...but so too will the training effect (which then begs the question again regarding the opportunity cost of engaging in a training means that you can't progress in an aggressive way). If the loads are appropriate to elicit and strong training effect, injuries will occur, as sure as night follows day. They occur for specialist Olympic lifters...it would be passing strange if fast bowlers were somehow spared, no? I am sure that the coaches you have spoken to have avoided injury, even while training their bowlers with Olympic lifts. This is entirely to be expected, given that most fast bowlers are nowhere near strong enough to lift heavy enough to hurt themselves. Bring me a fast bowler who is snatching 90 kgs or more every week without injury, and I'll concede the point (btw, elite male lifters will be snatching around 120 - 140 kgs in the weight range of a typical fast bowler). The point I'm making again and again is that Olympic lifting as such is neither a bad training means for fast bowlers' GPP (it's not, it's just not a good training means compared to other options) nor is it neccessarily going to injure fast bowlers (it probably won't, because they won't be proficient or strong enough to injure themselves). Thanks for you thoughts. I hope that you realise that there are a multitude of reasonable and intelligent people in this field that disagree about how best to do GPP for athletes. Like many young men, Nathan is enthused about the training means that he's currently using. In another 20 years, when he's as old as me, he will have seen many ideas come and go...and may, like me come to the conclusion that there is much more that we don't know than what we know. By the way, I am involved in the field; not directly in competition with Nathan, but close enough that any continuation of this discussion could be viewed as a conflict of interests, so I will have to leave it there. Please continue your fine work, and keep learning and listening. All the best!
@@amiafish I believe I understood your point about stressors correctly, I simply disagree as there's no evidence and it appears to be your subjective opinion. And all of this is easily managed if a coach knows how to write a program, coach it and progress it. So there is no direct risk of injury no matter how you wish to view it. Olympic lifting also isn't highly technical, as Nathan said its not difficult to coach if you know what you're doing. The view that its 'too technical' is where people confuse olympic lift mastery with simply using a movement to elicit a desired adaptation. Eg - GPP. I also don't believe there are any bad exercises - so saying olympic lifts shouldn't be used because of fear of injury is Also I believe I've covered your view you believe olympic lifts will cause injury in my previous comment. Since you have no evidence, just a series of assumptions and anecdote. I have no idea where the claim elite male lifters snatch 120-140 and relate this to fast bowling. You do realise we discussed olympic lift derivatives, yet you seem to be referring to competitive olympic lifting. Are you trying to compare competitive olympic lifting to using olympic lifting derivatives to develop physical capacities of a Fast Bowler? Like we said this is simple GPP, develop underlying physical capacities. Not competitive olympic lifting - and neither of us have any Fast Bowler who complete the competition olympic lifts. We use derivatives. Would you be willing to share who disagrees? No worries, if this is a conflict of interest I wouldn't want you to get in trouble. Most coaches i know enjoy debating methods especially when they are in direct competition.
