How to train in the gym during the cricket season

Training during the cricket season isn’t about maxing out in the gym or chasing PBs—it’s about staying sharp, avoiding injury, and ensuring you turn up fresh on game day. Whether you’re a junior cricketer playing five days a week or a club player balancing work and weekend matches, your in-season training needs to be smart and sustainable.

Here are seven essential tips to help you get the most out of your training during the season.

1. Lower the volume, keep the quality

In-season training is all about reduced volume but maintained intensity. That means fewer reps and sets, but still lifting decent weights.

For example:

• Off-season: 3 sets of 8 reps = 24 total reps
• In-season: 3 sets of 5 reps = 15 total reps

By doing fewer reps, you reduce soreness (DOMS), which helps you feel fresh on match day. But by keeping the weights heavy, you still send a strong stimulus to your body to maintain strength.

2. Don’t drop intensity

Many cricketers mistakenly reduce the weight they lift in-season. Don’t. Intensity (how heavy you lift) is what maintains strength. Volume is what makes you sore.

If you were squatting 100kg pre-season, keep lifting 100kg—just do fewer reps. Your body is smart: give it enough load, and it will hold onto strength.

3. Avoid workload spikes

One of the biggest injury risks is inconsistency. If you stop training early in the season, then randomly jump back into intense gym sessions mid-season, you’re asking for trouble.

This spike in workload leads to soreness, altered movement patterns, and, often, injury. The key? Stay consistent with your training—even if it’s just twice a week. Moderate, consistent effort beats boom-and-bust cycles every time.

4. Movement is medicine

Whilst there is a place for sexy recovery methods such as ice baths and massage guns. The best recovery tool is movement.

Feeling tight or sore after a match? A short mobility session will do a world of good. Simple dynamic stretches or mobility flows (like the 90/90 or child’s pose) help restore range of motion and boost blood flow.

Add in good sleep and nutrition, and your body will bounce back faster.

5. Take at least one full rest day

This is especially important for juniors who are playing 4–5 days per week. You need at least one day with no cricket and no gym work. A light stretch is fine, but true recovery comes from doing less.

Respect your body’s need to rest. You’ll perform better because of it.

6. Don’t stop lifting

If you’ve built up a good strength base over the winter, don’t throw it away.

Cricketers often stop strength work during the season out of fear it’ll make them tired or sore. But as we said in Tip 1, that’s only true if you keep the volume too high. Keep lifting weights—but keep it efficient and minimal.

Strength supports performance. Ditch it, and both your fitness and injury risk will suffer.

7. Don’t just treat symptoms—find the cause

Knees sore? Shoulders aching? Lower back tight? It’s tempting to just foam roll the area or stretch it endlessly.

But often the site of pain isn’t the root of the problem. For example:

• Knee pain? Could be weak glutes or tight calves.
• Lower back pain? Could be poor hip mobility or a stiff thoracic spine.
• Shoulder pain? Could be linked to tight pecs or weak scapular muscles.

Think upstream and downstream—not just where it hurts.

Final thoughts

The cricket season is your time to express all the hard work you did in winter. Training should now support performance—not hinder it.

At Cricfit, our in-season programs are designed to help cricketers stay strong, feel sharp, and reduce injury risk with minimal time in the gym. Volume comes down, intensity stays high—and results keep coming.

If you’re not training with us yet and want a clear plan, check out our Cricfit app or reach out—we’re here to make strength and conditioning simple and accessible for all cricketers.