Hi and welcome to this week’s Stretch-of-the-Week. This week the sport we will be focusing on is cricket. Now there are a few different positions in cricket which use completely different muscles of the body but today we are mainly going to focus on the muscle involved when bowling. The bowler exerts a lot of stress on the back when bowling, mainly hypertension, lateral flexion and thoraco-lumbar rotation. However the shoulder, mainly the rotator cuff, is also heavily relied on and will be the specific muscle we will focus on today. The rotator cuff is comprised of four muscles originating from the scapular and inserting into the humerus at different points. They are used to stabilize the humerus in the glenoid fossa of the scapula during movement. Restrict on full range of movement is usually due to hypertrophy and hypertonicity.

Starting off with the standing back rotation stretch to loosen up the obliques will reduce the possibility of injury due to stress and strain during bowling. The back is often overlooked in many stretching regimes and to do this stretch correctly your hips must stay pointing in one direction whilst the upper half of your body rotates. Try to not bounce yourself around and if you are having issues you can ask a friend to twist your body for you

Moving on to your arms and rotator cuffs this stretch targets the muscles in the shoulder rotator cuff. It may look complicated or even painful but with the help of your cricket bat this stretch is perfect for bowlers. You do not have to wrap your whole hand around the end of the stick/cricket bat, just your thumb and index finger. Focus your stretching on the shoulder, if you are feeling the stretch through your wrist loosen your grip a little or try some wrist stretches.

This stretch will focus on the rest of your shoulder not just the rotator cuff. It is important when stretching to remember that all muscle overlap therefore you cannot just stretch the muscle relating to the rotator cuff without thinking about the rest of the shoulder. If you do this stretch correctly it should help you with your power and flexibility through your shoulder and reduce the possibility of injury. Make sure your feet are shoulder width apart and that you rotator the entire upper half of your body from the hips. If you can get your fingers to point the complete other direction it will deepen the stretch further.

The Subscapularis is the main muscle associated with the shoulders rotator cuff and therefore a PNF stretch of this muscle would be extremely beneficial. Specifically it will improve the external rotation of the humerus. The stretcher lays down on their back and bends one arm up at right angles from their body as far as possible whilst still being comfortable. This will lengthen the subscapularis to its pain-free end of range. The partner places their hands on the stretches elbow and wrist for support. The stretcher slowly attempts to rotate their humerus internally and therefore contract the subscapularis isometrically (push your wrist towards the ceiling). The stretcher should then relax and inhale deeply. On the exhale the stretcher should attempt to push their wrist towards the floor, deepening the stretch.

Obviously we could not include every stretch required for this sport instead this blog will aimed to cover the main stretches used and maybe a few you may not have thought of previously. Please remember to follow the safe stretching tips we have given you in the previous blog as well as the individual safety tips for static and PNF stretching.