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JOIN NOWHas anyone else heard of this?
I came across this idea when I was involved in a training session last year. the idea is to find out if you are more balanced breathing in and holding your breath or emptying your lungs before you attempt to take a catch. the way they did this was to pair off and player one breaths in and holds his breath and player two gently pushes player one to see how balanced he is, then player one empties his/her lungs and player two pushes them gently again and then they see where player one has the most effective balance, then they do the same with player two. Has anyone else come across this? I'm just wondering? After doing this there did seem to be an increase in successful catches.
Cricket CoachCoach
ANSWERS
Neville YoungCoach, Australia
What`s the premise with this Eoin? Are players supposed to empty or fill their lungs before taking a catch during a game based on the findings of the training sessions?
There seems to be some linkage to breathing in Yoga and relaxation, but I`m not sure about balance.
What are the positioning of the feet for example, that would seem to be more important to me than whether you breathe in or out.
To see if the theory works you would need to do some testing over a couple of weeks and accurately record the catching stats of your players and repeat the procedure after your breathing session.
For what its worth in my 50 years of involvement in cricket and other sports you breathe in when you are preparing to do something (lifting your bat for a shot, gathering to bowl) and breathe out (playing a shot, delivering the ball) as you do it. For me I would always breath in just before taking a catch,, hold my breathe .while taking the catch and breathe out after taking the catch. However, I`m not sure if I did that taking a catch on the run, but I suspect I did.
On further note which is pure speculation on my part, it seems to me that breathing in would increase the blood flow to your brain and perhaps enable it to function better than when you breath out.
Might just be a research paper somewhere in there Eoin!
Neville YoungCoach, Australia
Hi Eoin,Ive just been listening to a radio program on Olympic sports. The section on shooting had a tip on how to prepare for target shooting. Apparently shooters take in a deep breath, then exhale half and hold their breath as they squeeze the trigger. This helps to keep their aim steady.
So maybe it`s not fully inhale or fully exhale, but in between.
