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How to Adapt for IPL Cricket | Fitness Masterclass with Chinmoy Roy

The mid-summer bash of the mega hit cricket league of the world is awaiting its bugle to blare. Yes, it’s the cash reach Indian Premier League I am talking about.

To remain fit for the fourteen group league and afterwards three knockout matches, fitness will play a key role, especially when you are thrown in the hot cauldron of the amphitheatre. Kane Williamson of Sun Risers Hyderabad is coming from max temperature of 20 degrees. Even Glen Maxwell (RCB) and Pat Cummins (KKR) are coming out of balmy Australian weather. No matter what experience they had before, acclimatization takes time. In that context the like of Eoin Morgan (KKR), Jos Butler and Ben Stokes, both Rajasthan Royals will have a head start since they were exposed to the scorching heat here in India for two months.

In this episode of Fitness Master Class with Chinmoy I have dealt with the questions on what should be the mantra of surviving physically under such a trying weather. If you look at the entire pool of cricketers among the eight teams it is evident that a fair chunk, sans the Indian and England squad are not physically jaded. That big chunk has come here well trained and in good shape, the likes of Chris Morris and Rashid Khan. For this group just maintenance training will be more than enough. However, for the Indo-English contingent it will be a bit of maintenance training and more of recovery stuff. In the maintenance training working on core will be the priority. In fact, some of the functional core exercises are done during the warm up in practice and before the match. Having said that, for all the cricketers in the IPL, recovery from the stress of the match will play a major role.

I had a short stint with the Kolkata Knight Riders as an assistant trainer back in 2011. From my experience I have seen that the core team does not do any conditioning training since matches are conditioning itself. Some cricketers do weight training and the fringe players train.

Recovery is defined as the process that enables the body to come back to its normal state so that one can get on with the next match fresh and fit. Most importantly having a good foundation of overall fitness plays a major role for a prompt recovery. The recovery means takes over once he player is back to dressing room or hotel. The spectrum consists of Cryotherapy (cold therapy, ice bath), Pool stretches, Massage, passive stretches, resting yoga poses and so on. In this episode I have given a glimpse of some of the core exercises. And also some easy to execute resting yoga poses.

Core Exercise-1