Martyn Moxon hoping Yorkshire CCC players improvise to keep fit during lockdown

The club had hoped to organise a staged pick-up at Emerald Headingley to take delivery of items such as dumbbells. But with only essential travel allowed due to the coronavirus crisis, the club has scrapped the plan.

Director of cricket Martyn Moxon said: “We were thinking of getting individuals to come in and pick up a few weights and what have you, but we’re not going to do that now.

“Lads have got different access to different kinds of equipment, so we were just going to try and fill in the gaps of what some of them didn’t have.

“They weren’t going to be coming in en masse – it was going to be a staged pick-up, if you like, with no one else present at the club.

“The S&C [strength and conditioning] staff, Pete Sim and Ian Fisher, were going to kind of package up, if you like, a sort of training pack, for want of a better term, and leave it in the gym for the players to collect individually.”

Rather than view the prevailing crisis in inhibiting terms, Moxon sees it as a positive challenge.

The players have been training at home anyway for the past few days and are set to continue for the foreseeable future.

“There’s nothing in the government’s latest advice that will stop them from doing what they have been doing,” he added.

“They can still do aerobic fitness, whether that’s going out for a run, cycling or walking, and it’s an opportunity for us all to be inventive, I think.

“We’re seeing lots of videos online, aren’t we, of people doing various fitness stuff and things, and we’ve just got to be inventive and try and find a way.

“Strength work is obviously the biggest challenge, and players are either going to have to use their own body weight or any weights that they have access to themselves.”

Yorkshire want their players to be as imaginative as possible.

It could even be that they use such things as stairs and chairs as training tools.

They are also giving them responsibility and welcoming the players’ input as opposed to simply laying down the law.

Moxon and his support staff have been impressed with the players’ hard work fitness-wise throughout the winter.