Pre-season fitness.

Another quick blast around the local woods today as part of my fitness regime. I have to admit though I've been slack with this - partly down to the fact that it's been cold and the other thing is I'm doing the usual pre-season DIY chores.

I've got a blood pressure monitor so that measures other values... Diastolic and Systolic blood pressure. In my chart below the last 2 digits are my heart rate. In each column the row at the top is the measurement as soon as I get in from the exercise. The number on the right highlighted yellow is my heart rate. Then each row of numbers beneath the top row is the measurement done at minute intervals.

From what I can gather, what you do is take the 3rd measurement e.g. 2 minutes after finishing the exercise and subtract that from the top number. That difference is an indication of how good your recovery rate is and how healthy your heart is. 

• Less than 22:  Your biological age is slightly older than your calendar age.

You can see therefore when I first did this around April 1st my recovery rate was 9 so my heart is 'Biologically older than my age, but you can see with each days it seems and the increase in activity the number is going up, so I'm quite optimistic, I'm happy with the jump between 14th and 15th April, and I'm hoping this'll improve as the week goes on. I'd like to see it somewhere near the 50 mark as that'll mean my heart/biological age is younger than my actual age. But in the short term anything over 22 will be good. 

Another value that you need to look at is your heart rate after exercise...At my age my heart rate after exercise should be between 102 and 136, it seems the faster your heart beats the younger you should be... See a chart here As you can see here below this figure is improving too, so for the moment as I write 15/4/19 things are looking positive. 

With the season coming up I need to get on this a bit more, so I'll endeavor to do this once a day from now on, with an increase in the running.

My circuit is around a wood and takes around 18-20 minutes. It has a few hills, with two biggish hills and the aim is to run up as many of these hills as fast as possible as I get fitter and then to run and walk sporadically throughout the walk, to recreate the running and pausing when batting. 

I'll update this post as the days go on.

16/4/19 - Thinking about this and looking at the data, I realised there may be an issue whereby the last bit of running I do before coming in and making the measurement is a couple of hundred yards short of my house. Therefore I'm already in recovery from a period of intense activity when I take the first measurement, so today I made sure the last 200 feet or so was a sprint to the front door and the data is significantly different...

 You can now see that having sprinted at the end, my heart rate is far higher... 127 and then two minutes later the recovery far more significant... 35! So, from now on this'll be what I'll do as I reckon this is far more realistic. Another thing you'll see is that I'm doing this twice a day at the moment.

March Diary

Nets went well through February - getting a fair few hours under my belt, but more importantly with input from a variety of coaches who look after the Essex disability players. Very few people at my own club offer any advice, so it's difficult to make any progress. Over March it looks like I'll net with my club for 2 sessions totaling four hours and with the disability players somewhere between 8 and 12 hours with input and a variety of drills as well as bowling machine work and throw downs with specific goals, so all is good. From all of this work I'm now moving my feet a lot more and generally feel a lot more confident.

As mentioned last month the captain of the 3's has been announced and it's a bloke called Alistair Hayton...

I'm not so sure about what he thinks of my bowling whenever I've been around playing in any teams that he's been in I've not got to bowl that much. He's a decent bowler himself right arm orthodox as I recall - accurate and wiley, changes in pace, length and speed with a little bit of spin. I kind of half expect that I wont get to bowl that much, in which case I'll be off to another club. We'll have to see how it goes.

The end of February was amazing with some incredibly warm weather with records being broken, we sat in the garden for two days in shorts with temperatures up around 22 degrees centigrade over one weekend! March has started with blustery winds, hail stones and a little rain. I've continued with the hollow tiner - aerating the paddock, there's no obvious benefit as yet, but the seeds that I sowed last autumn have come through okay as a good new sward of grass. The shady stuff though - not so good.

9th March

Had a good net this Saturday was at Writtle for three hours, the additional hour at the end was with the Boreham cc blokes. Ken the chairman who is the opener in the first XI? commented on how well I bowled at him. I got him a couple of times - stumped once and potentially mis-hit balls to mid on and off. He also helped with the batting - giving me some pointers.

Fitness/exercise_________________________________________________________

This resonated with me... I watched this video about Glen Hoddle having a heard attack and surviving because there was a 1st aider around who administered CPR. But it was some of other stuff. Hoddle saying that he considered himself as being fit, but then alluding to the fact that his exercise regime possibly wasn't up to it because doing exercise is dreary unless you're kicking a ball around (With the grandchildren). I'm of the same opinion. It is dead dreary - really boring and because of that my exercise regime with regards - aerobic exercise is virtually non-existent, but this was a bit of a wake-up call. Watch the video if you're 40 + especially if you have as I have a family history of people dying from heart attacks. Double click on the image to open it.

One of the things that puts me off is the monotony of the circuit you run or walk, but today I tried a circuit around the local woods right out the back of my house - mud and all and it worked for me. The woods are beautiful and peaceful, I don't run, I just power walk, I don't want high impact exercise that ruins my knees, just something that works my legs, glutes and heart and it was spot on perfect. So, hopefully I'll be able to keep this up and do it daily. We'll have to see how it goes. When it dries out I may vary it a bit - by adding short sprints every minute or so to re-create the running and resting between wicket, so that its more cricket specific.

17/3/19

Later in the month I started to look at my recovery rate after exercise and it seems that looking at the data my recovery rate at the moment isn't particularly good.

My blood pressure data today from stopping normal activity and sitting down for a few seconds was... 114 - 79 - 57.

Which is in the ideal section. I then went for a walk - this isn't a normal walk this is walking as fast as I can without actually running and includes a couple of meaty hills. The walk is about 21 minutes and my measurement once I got in was...

117 - 67 -90 . I then took another measurement a minute later and then every minute thereafter. (The end number 90 is my heart rate.

111 - 66 - 84

113 - 68 - 81

116 - 70 - 79

113 - 68 - 78

114 - 69 - 78

So it seems the jump from 90 down to 84 in the first minute is the one that needs to improve and this is an indication that my hearts not in tip top condition. Almost certainly down to lack of exercise. At least I can take one thing from the readings - my blood pressure is okay!

The other thing that concerns me is my lower back. When I sit when relaxed I slouch and then when I go from a slouched sitting position to straightening to stand I get what feels like a trapped nerve or some sort of spasm. Associated with that just bending over to do stuff brings on similar reactions. This is all due to the fact that I've been less active over this winter than I ever have been and now it looks like I'm paying for it!

Plenty of nets this month - every Thursday had 2 hours at Woodlands with my club and then on Saturday mornings 3 hours - 2 with Graham Davies,  Paul Jones and the Essex disability players and then an hour with Boreham cc's boys. The Boreham boys are mostly 1st XI players from Division 6, I'm playing in Division 10 this year. They're decent players of the standard seen at 2nd XI in the old league and appropriately they'll be up against our 2nd XI. So I'm having a really challenging work-out in the nets against good standard players - bowlers and batsman. 

The same thing is happening at the clubs nets, so few people go to nets, the only people who are there are generally blokes that are much better than the standard I have to bowl against and bat against, so it's a real challenge and potentially beneficial. 

The paddock_________________________________________________________

Made a start on the Paddock this is where my son and I practice during the summer, so over the weekend of 23/24th I've cut the grass at the batting end and had the roller on it. Over February I've been aerating it using a hollow tiner, but this hasn't had any obvious impact. I'm hoping the council over the next few days will be in there and they'll cut the rest of the grass and I'll be able to get the other half of the wicket cut.

29th the council cut the grass allowing me to cut the entire length of the wicket on the 30th I had a bowl. Weirdly I didn't seem to be able to bowl as well as I have been in the nets, but they might have been because I'd bowled and batted for 3 hours this morning and just cut an entire wicket with a cylinder mower, so I may have been a bit knackered?

Later I did some fitness drills and they didn't go that well either, but I have been ill over the last 2 weeks with a cold and therefore not doing much exercise.

______________________________________________________________________

Spring arrived at last

The sun came out today and in the sun trap in our garden it was warm enough to get your shirt off and get some much needed vitamin D. My mind turned to the fact that the first game is about 5 weeks away. It's a home game on May 12th against Horndon on the Hill, I was hoping that I might have some analysis on some of their batsmen in my on-line database of local batsmen which I started last year. Unfortunately I've got nothing on any of the Horndon players, so will have to resort to doing some on-field analysis prior to bowling if I have the opportunity. 

One of the blokes from big cricket has commented on that page suggesting that the degree of analysis is possibly too much and that the approach might be better if you categorise the batsmen into types? This'll be the approach I'll be using on-field, looking for strengths and weaknesses of the batsman and then hopefully bowling to exploit the weakness and avoid the strengths and then backing the bowling approach up with an appropriate field.

I bowled a lot from the Graveyard end last year...

Which you can see has more field behind the bowlers arm, whereas the other end is backed by big trees. As I only play 4th XI cricket we don't have screens and I didn't realise how difficult it is to see the ball when bowled out of the trees. In one of the last games I played last season I bowled against an old bloke who was an 'England over 70's' player or something and he opened and walked off holding his bat, having won the game for his team. After the game where I'd only bowled 4 overs - mostly at him and had managed to keep it really tight he said to me "Why did they take you off, I was really struggling against you - you were giving it so much air, I couldn't pick it out of the trees and it was a nightmare". So, tactic change number one for this season will be to bowl from the Estate End where possible. Funnily enough my captain who bowls right-arm finger spin always bowls from that end...

Other things - happening cricket related, If you follow the blog I've delayed the start of my get fit regime this year, because I always seem to fall ill in the midst of it and then get put back months and generally start the season on the back foot. This year I've rested up fully through the really cold months and it's only now that I'm thinking about getting it going. So at the moment I'm sporadically cycling around a circuit to increase cardio and I think I'll now move into doing that at least once a day now. The cycling is a 15 minute stint with a couple of hefty hills on a single speed bike...

At home indoors I'm doing terra-band exercises, working on upper body - shoulders, arms, triceps and forearms. Loads of planks for core strength and I'm starting to do foot raises to strengthen my Achilles tendon. I'll also start to do a load of Yoga style stretches as well in the coming days. Hopefully with this approach I wont over-do the exercise and weaken my resistance to falling ill which someone had suggested might be happening in previous years. We'll have to see how it goes.

Another warm day tomorrow.

January waffling

It's mid January and I've got my head around the idea of having high blood pressure now and everything feels pretty normal. I'm on Amlodipine pills 10mg for the moment and I'm hoping to get off of them if possible. I've got a blood pressure machine that straps to my wrist and measures my blood pressure and the measurements have steadily declined right from the outset. In addition I've changed my diet dramatically in accordance with the suggestions that the British Heart Foundation suggest, so with a bit of luck if the dosage is reduced the other changes that I've made might sustain the normal blood pressure readings? Who knows, but I've got an appointment with the nurse this coming Wednesday and she's going to look at my data that I've been recording and do some blood tests for things like Cholesterol as far as I can recall.

The only thing that I have been neglecting which doesn't help is the exercise component, but in the last day or so I've been making a start to get ready for the new season. I ate so much less than I would normally do over Christmas and people at work have been saying that I look like I've lost weight, so that's probably a good sign. I've now just to get some muscles, strength, stamina and agility back.

Another good thing that I've noticed is that my Plantar Fasciitis seems to have eased of after over two years of it and this has happened with no intervention. About a year or so ago I found a website, forum and a bunch of videos on Youtube by an Australian Podiatrist, who's qualifications put him at the top of his game. This bloke was in his late 50's pretty much the same as me and was still participating in sport of some sort - running possibly, I don't remember exactly, but he also had PF and he and his Podiatrist mates had pages and pages of info and discussions on the matter - what they were recommending for different patients and how much success was to be had with the different approaches for these patients. But, the bottom line seemed to be that there was no sure fire cure, there were recommendations that were made because there was potential for some increase in comfort, but the overall sense was that there was a placebo effect in recommending treatment (a) or (b) more than an actual proven medical benefit. 

The main bloke writing the article was massively dismissive of all the stuff on Youtube, making the point that there was no all-singing all dancing cure for PF, because when it came down to it, PF in many instances if left alone suddenly (like mine has) dissipates and disappears. He went on to make the point that in my case for instance, if I'd seen a video on Youtube that has recommended rubbing brown sauce on my feet for 15 minutes a month ago and decided to try it, I might now be tempted to post stuff on Youtube about brown sauce being a miracle cure for PF, when in fact it had just gone away of it's own accord. I'm just happy that mine seems to have almost gone for the moment and fingers crossed I'll be able to bowl this season without that at the back of mind.

That'll do for now, I might waffle on about plans for variations for this coming season in the next couple of days.