Liam Price, Nottinghamshire's Strength and Conditioning Coach, wears a plethora of hats over the course of a year.
His first assignment of the annual cycle arrives not long after the final ball of the season is bowled.
He produces meticulously tailored physical training schedules for all of Nottinghamshire’s domestic players across the first of three five-week pre-season blocks, ensuring players are in optimal condition to face the stresses and strains of the domestic cricketing calendar.
The process repeats in the new year, and again as players head into the outdoors marquee facility at Lady Bay. It is no easy task, considering the hours required to produce 25 tailored plans.
Then, when the playing season comes round, he assumes a crucial supplementary role in the day-to-day county grind - facilitating gym sessions, providing nutrition and maintaining energy levels within the group.
He is an individual dedicated to his craft and armed with knowledge. His goal is to ensure players have the physical capacity to perform at their best. Covid, though, taught him, and Notts’ backroom staff, about the best way to achieve their aims - an approach he has put into practice this year.
“As a strength and conditioning coach, you’d like to think my programmes get the lads fit and strong and that they need me there, but players who maybe needed to lose a bit of body fat came back [from furlough] 12 kilograms lighter,” Price laughs.
“That autonomous element brought out the best in some of our players. From a coaching point of view we’ve thought ‘okay, maybe we need to take a step back sometimes’, and we’ve considered that this year.
“So we don't make decisions and just place it on the player, we do it through discussion. The player might turn around and say their plan doesn’t fit the way they like to train, Fletch is a great example of that.
“He runs his own pre-season. He signs up to a gym near his home so he can go every day, do his swimming, mobility and loading. He will do that before 8:00am, take his kids to school, and then come in for training. He has a system, and knows what he needs to do for his body. He got 66 wickets last year and didn’t get injured once.”
It is a system based on trust and shared knowledge.
"Because cricket is such a skill based sport, the physical seems really removed from the performance element, so you need to establish the crossover." Liam Price
Players need to understand how their cricket will improve as a result of the physical work they are being tasked with, and how lifting or running can manifest in objective benefits.
Indeed, the latter has been at the core of Price’s pre-season programme, with Notts teaming up with sprint coaches Speedworks Training.
“The players understand why they do the gym stuff because we have objective numbers. We know, if they hit a certain number, it will help them to reduce injury, for example," he says.
“Running is a slightly different one. Because cricket is such a skill based sport, the physical seems really removed from the performance element, so you need to establish the crossover.
“We explained that if we can knock two tenths of a second off their 20 metre time, that can equate to one and a half frames in a run out, which is just over a metre. Most run outs are closer than that.
“Speedworks came in and analyzed, put footage through AI, and categorised players so we could move forward with interventions. They are recognised in world sprinting as some of the best, so we were very fortunate to work with them.”
And for Price, there lies an element of enjoyment in improving players physically.
He takes a particular interest in establishing the fundementals with players new onto Notts’ professional staff, to ensure player welfare is prioritized and that, ultimately, the club is in the best position to succeed on the pitch.
“Those new boys are really interesting to work with, because the likes of Sammy [King] and [James] Hayesy are the quintessential high-risk players - young, adolescent, skeletally immature, bowlers in a professional programme for the first time," he says.
“The more we can get to know about them, the better. We will always do the same physical testing across the squad, but things like the Vicon Motion System that [Kevin] Shiney uses, the GPS when they bowl, the Bone Density Scans from Nottingham Trent University, help to give us objective readings so we can work on them.
“In essence, the one percenters are the sexy stuff. If you have got a really skillful player, it can be really hard to increase their performance through physical improvements.
“What you can do though, is keep them on the pitch longer. Giving Moorsey complete availability for any pitch we turn up at on a given day, and being able to rotate, is really important.”
And with an acute awareness of the role he plays in the wider picture, Price is excited for the season to commence.
“Our old psychologist Tommo described it to me as, in the pre-season, we’re the guys at the front of the band, the lead singer - preparing players," he says.
"When the season arrives, you take a step back and you’re on bass, but you’re still an integral part of the process.
“My big focus is bringing energy to the group, making sure it is a positive atmosphere and people want to be here.
“It is just small things like driving the van, keeping players hydrated and fed, getting Colin the Caterpillar if it is someone’s birthday. In terms of conditioning, players will fit in cardio and lifts but generally we reduce volume and increase intensity.
“I’m at a good age to travel, so I love being on the road with the boys. I’m buzzing to get going again.”