To put words in the mouth of renown strength coach Alwyn Cosgrove: If you know what similarity your cricket has with martial arts and motorcross you might help make yourself a better player.

The answer is that all three sports suffer from build up of lactic acid, the pesky stuff that make your muscles burn and tires you out. Alwyn explains:

"The effect of lactic acid on localized muscle groups is devastating. The cardio system will feel fine, but that area will lock up and shut down. Kickboxers call this 'heavy legs.' Motocross athletes experience the same phenomenon but call it 'arm pump' - where despite feeling fine - the forearms become so pumped up and unable to move that the rider is toast anyway!"

If you have ever felt heavy legs yourself in the field or at the crease I'm sure you can empathise with those boys and girls who like to kick each other or drive around on 2 wheels for fun. It seems to me this practice can be applied just as effectively to cricket.

Keep things simple with complexes

Alywn's answer is to use complexes. A training method that, despite it's name, is wonderfully simple.

Find something heavy. It could be a weight in the gym, a sandbag, or your little brother and perform a single rep of a series of exercises with the weight with no rest between each exercise. Repeat.

That's about it.

What this does is improve your general work capacity and your resistance to the build up of lactic acid. In other words you get stronger and fitter in a more cricket specific way. Something you should always strive for.

Also, it's great for body composition and who doesn't want a bit more muscle and a bit less fat?

Have a look here for some ideas of the kind of routine you could use.

Bear in mind you need to do this training in a safe way with good technique. So if you are a beginner to this kind of training you will want to get advice from a qualified trainer (probably in your local gym). For tat reason complexes would probably not be something you want to start training altogether with. If you are unsure, start with a bodyweight circuit training plan first.

So whether you are a cyclist, like to beat people up or just want to last longer in the field make sure you mix up your strength training and running with a few simple complexes.