Darren and Andy plan to ensure the players are ready for new season

For most people the festive period is a time for a break and taking things easy but for two of the behind the scenes members of staff at Somerset County Cricket Club this has not been the case.

Far from taking things easy, the Head of Injury Prevention Darren Veness and Andy Hurry the Fitness and Performance Analyst at the club have been reflecting on what has been achieved so far in the closed season and planning for the period leading up to March 24th when all of the Somerset players report back.

In the period before Christmas the pair told me that the players had all concentrated on two main areas of their fitness. Firstly they had worked on setting up a good fitness base by developing their aerobic condition and muscle endurance, and then they had concentrated on resistance training building up strength, which included interval training.

After Christmas the players would be concentrating on functional exercise, with specific training that was related to cricket related movement.

They told me: "What we both do is of course very important to the players, but it is only a small part of their overall training. The most important aspect of what they do during the closed season is the skills level, and this is done with Kevin Shine and Mark Garaway."

"We need specifically fit individuals to play cricket we don't need to try to create bodybuilders! We work very closely with the coaches and make training adjustments that concentrate on their requirements, we have to run concurrently with their specific skills development," they continued.

"We try to get the players recovered from the rigours of last season and then fit for the next one, and we only have a relatively short period available for us to do itfrom mid October until mid March," Darren told me.

He continued: "Over the last few seasons there has been an increasing awareness of individuals specific requirements because of the research into the workload that they undertake."

Andy told me: "We're trying to make them self reliant, fitter and stronger to try to ensure that we have a full squad of players to choose from. We are trying to introduce a new culture which is all about getting top performance."

Darren continued: "Track and field events in athletics and soccer have been into this area for many years. Cricket is still playing `catch up', but here at Somerset we are looking to set the pace among the first class counties. We are not looking to follow trends we are looking at the best practice and innovations and bringing the best of it to Somerset."

When the players report back they will quickly forget the holiday and get into their new schedules that are geared towards producing them to peak performance for the start of the cricket season in April which is exactly one hundred days away!