The New Zealand BLACKCAPS travel the world, playing cricket against countries as diverse as England, India and South Africa. Being from a temperate -climate country like New Zealand, then travelling and competing in hot, humid conditions found in Guyana or Florida, creates a challenge for the team’s physical conditioners.
BLACKCAPS fitness trainer Bryan Stronach says the key to dealing with the transition from cold to high temperatures is to start an acclimatisation process as soon as players arrive. “It normally takes 10 days for the body to acclimatise to the sort of high temperature and high humidity our players have experienced in places like the West Indies.
“It is important players do not over exert or spend too much time in the heat initially,” said Stronach. “You have to gradually increase the amount of exercise the guys do and make sure that they are drinking enough to avoid de-hydration.
“We have to adapt the players’ sweat ratio quickly. Performance can drop off radically because our guys sweat more and lose fluids quicker in the heat. So we look at supplements like aqualite, which is low in carbohydrates, so it is not an energy drink, but is high in sodium, which helps you retain water. Supplements with electrolytes also help. Electrolytes get in to your bloodstream and stop you from cramping, they also help stop you from de-hydrating.
“We also use plenty of ice baths (a recovery technique where players plunge into ice-cold water after exercise) to help the players recover quickly.
Stronach says there are actually many positive side effects associated with exercise in such hot climates. “For example flexibility is better because the muscles are much warmer. Recovery times are faster, but on the flip-side of that players burn much more energy during training than they normally would, so they have to compensate for that.
“We change or warm-up structures, shortening our pre training and pre-match warm-up times because you don’t have to spend so much time getting warm, the shorter you can make the warm-up phase, the less energy you have to expend.
“When we make the transition to Florida it won’t be as challenging as coming directly from New Zealand because we will already have acclimatised in the West Indies to similar conditions that we will face in the USA.
