The core is a muscle group that everyone references and understands is important for cricket performance. But why exactly is it and more importantly, how can we train our core to directly correlate to improve speed, power and robustness. Let’s find out!

When looking at movement patterns that involve the core and how we train for them, we can break it down into 3 key categories: Anti-extension, anti rotation and anti lateral flexion.

Anti-extension

Anti-extension is the first and arguably the most important. What we mean by anti-extension is that you are avoiding excessive extension through your lumbar spine. A really easy way to visualise this is think of how Raheem Sterling runs. In the YouTube video below you can see a detailed explanation of how we coach this using the cue of a “short string” between your belly button and ribcage. If your ribs raise and push forward during exercise, especially core exercises where you’re on your back, then it’s likely you aren’t really engaging your core and this will cause you back pain. So to get the most out of core exercises such as planks, bear crawls and dead bugs, it’s vitally important we learn to control our ribcage and pelvis, by switching on our abs and engaging our posterior core muscles. Whilst this sounds simple, we see it time and again with new Athletes we coach that they initially really struggle with this concept.

In our opinion, this is because in the modern day lifestyle, we spend the majority of our day sat down with poor posture. This not only means the core can do nothing but also that our hips get very tight with our hips being flexed whilst sitting down. This means when we stand up, we slip into anterior pelvic tilt where we are overly extended through our lumbar spine. To get rid of this position, another cue we think works really well is to imagine there is a string on your tailbone, grab it between your legs and pull your tailbone forward. This pelvic “tuck” will require your core and glutes to switch on and voila, you’ve achieved anti-extension.

Cricket performance wise, anti-extension is crucial to preventing back pain whilst playing cricket. The research shows that excessive lumbar spine extension in the bowling action is a risk factor for stress fractures. Plus, a weak core that can’t resist extension will be a leak in the kinetic chain and reduce potential bat & ball speed. For plenty of anti-extension exercise ideas you can refer to our YouTube video on the subject.

Anti-rotation

Anti-rotation is most simply explained by keeping your hips and shoulders square to each other, pointing the same direction. The muscles down the side of our core, the obliques, are crucial for this but the posterior (front side) muscles will also be switched on to achieve this. Pelvic control is something we see a lot of people struggle with initially with excessive movement through the hips being present during simple exercises. Anti-rotation exercises often involve isometric exercises such as palof holds and side planks which help the athlete to learn how to keep the hips & shoulders square.

It might seem counterintuitive for cricket performance to “resist” rotation since rotational power is such a key part of the game. But the harder you can resist rotation, the quicker you’re able to unwind and let it rip. And similar to anti-extension, excessive movement is going to cause a leak in your kinetic chain, wasting energy and dropping ball & bat speed. The best athletes make movement look simple and this is often because there is limited compensatory movement, meaning it looks easier than it actually is. For more anti-extension tips and exercises, check out the YouTube video below.

Anti-lateral flexion

Finally, lateral flexion is essentially when you’re bending over to the side. Similar to anti-rotation, the obliques are vital to avoid this and the same exercises work really well for helping to avoid this. Lateral flexion is something which is inherent to bowling due to the technique required in keeping the elbow straight. So it’s important to understand we will never completely avoid it when bowling but instead we want to reduce the extent of the the flexion. A simple way to visualise this is instead of looking like a really bent banana, it’s a less bent banana. You’re never find a completely straight banana or bowler without some degree of lateral flexion! Avoiding lateral flexion will once again improve performance by making the kinetic chain more efficient but also reduce the likelihood of a side strain occurring. For more coaching tips and anti lateral flexion specific exercise, check out the video below.

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