Fast & Up Tips for Cricketers : Hydration

Cricket is a long game with various requirements: explosive power, speed, agility, endurance, strength, stamina and recovery speed. High levels of concentration and zero mental fatigue are essential in a game of cricket. All of these factors are heavily influenced by what you eat.

Combined with a well planned fitness and skills based programme, eating right for your game is vital if you want to be stronger, have more endurance and play a better game. The last thing you want to do is waste all that great training by not eating right.

Food is fuel and if you fuel your body right it will keep you at the optimum level for playing cricket. Cricketers need to base their intake on nutrient- dense foods. Food intake needs to be well-timed to help with recovery between sessions. Intake may need to be adjusted to match the activity level of each day with extra snacks being included on heavier days.

Cricket often gets ignored as a potential beneficiary of correct nutrition strategies. The training for these athletes varies greatly in terms of intensity and much is based on skill work although a strong focus must exist for strength, fitness and flexibility workouts.

• Eating is just as much a part of training as lifting, running and learning plays. Whether you’re a batsmen or a bowler, you need to fuel adequately to train well, recover quickly and increase endurance.
• Specific nutrient requirements are based on your body size and position. What works for one player may not be the best strategy for someone else. Analyzing the individual’s needs and working on them should be of utmost importance.

Why is Training Nutrition important ?

Cricketers need to ensure that their training diet is well planned to coincide with their training goals and their schedule. As with most sports, training nutrition needs to focus on eating nutrient dense meals and snacks that include wholegrain cereals, fruit and vegetables, low-fat dairy products, lean meat, poultry/fish or vegetarian alternatives. In addition the timing of meals also needs to be well planned to aid rapid recovery between sessions. When players expend more energy (i.e. heavier training days) they should be encouraged to include extra snacks to fuel the extra training load.

Basic guidelines for “Hydration”

During training and playing, the body controls its temperature by losing fluids, and failing to replace those fluids is a major problem. Excessive fluid loss reduces your endurance capacity, power, and concentration and increases reaction time. Losing more than 2 percent of your body weight in sweat is detrimental to performance and health.

Hydration – raises your body’s fluid level above the normal rate counteracts and reduces the negative effects of fluid loss during games and training.

A practical way to monitor sweat loss is to weigh yourself before and after exercise. Each pound of weight lost equals one pint of fluid, and each kilogram equals one and a half liters. These losses should be replaced as soon as possible by drinking water and sports drinks.

Practice your fluid plan during the week, particularly for heavy training sessions, and get used to drinking during training. Fluid intake should happen at regular intervals during training and as well as the match day. These players should make the most of opportunities such as warm ups, breaks during over changes, fall of wickets and during fielding. Drinking at least 250 – 500ml of fluid during each break replaces fluid sweat losses. It is advisable to avoid caffeine and alcohol as they can increase fluid loss.