Welcome to a special episode of the Healthy Bit podcast. Today we're thrilled to have our first
ever guest, cricket legend Tim Bresnan. From playing for Yorkshire at 16 and winning two
Ashes series and England's first T20 World Cup, Tim's career is packed with highlights.
23 test matches, over 7,000 first-class runs and 575 wickets.
Join us today as we dive into Tim's journey and his approach to staying fit
and how elite athletes transition to life off the field.
Tim, welcome to the show. Let's start with what got you first into cricket.
Yeah, good question. Thanks for having me on, by the way.
Looking forward to getting into the conversation.
What first got me into cricket? I guess
the fact that
my dad played at local club
cricket. Most of my
uncles played at the same club.
As kids, me and my brother used to play
against, we'd play for the
club, but also every Saturday we'd
be around the
back in the little corner just
playing with
a tennis ball and a bat
as kids do and
set stumps. I absolutely
loved it. I used to
and look forward to every weekend where we could just go and play cricket all day.
In the summer anyway. I think myself and my brother actually we weren't better than all the
other kids. It was a little bit obvious. Yeah we were both sort of drafted into the Yorkshire
school system quite early. I was like seven and Nick was um, maybe nine. So we were seven and nine
and I actually played Yorkshire under-11s when I was seven years old.
It was tiny as well.
But yeah, we just went all the way through the ranks,
and then Nick had a really bad injury at 15,
which kind of just halted his career and put a full stop on it,
which was really, really sad.
I'm sure it would have been a bit like the Curran brothers
I was actually quite lucky until the one that got me,
until the one that ended really my career, I guess.
Obviously, you have like little niggles,
and as a fast bowler, you get the old broken finger
and the old big bruise, but nothing really serious.
I had a couple of stress fractures in my back,
but they were just seen as kind of part and parcel,
occupational hazards kind of thing.
But yeah, I had a really bad elbow injury,
which I needed five surgeries.
Oh, wow.
So, yeah, that's the one.
And is that fully recovered now?
I don't think it ever will be.
I mean, I played for a little bit longer after.
So this was maybe 2017, 18.
No, 15, 16, something around there.
So I dove on a wicket and I smashed a little corner
of my, so I had a bone spare on the, if you're a physio, you might know this, on the end
of that one, a little bone spare on the, yeah, and the olecranon spare I had, that's exactly
it, and I smashed it off and it was floating around and they went in to get it, but by
the time they did it, it was embedded in the tendon, so they had to, well, do you know
It was a comedy of errors, I think, was the surgery.
So the first time the radiographer wanted to put a wire in to follow,
so the surgeon could follow the wire down and put the under ultrasound,
the lady thought that it was a calcified tendon,
so tried to push the wire through the bone.
And we were like, no, no, no, trust us, it's bone.
Trust us, please, it's bone.
She was trying to jab it through this needle,
and it slipped off the side and just went straight into my joint capsule,
this wire.
I was just like, I'm a bit queasy.
And then, yeah, that ruined my joint capsule at the same time.
I was running away.
So that had a leak.
And then it was like I had loads of bursitis and all that afterwards.
It just didn't go very well.
It's going to make you relive it.
Yeah.
Getting up really bad.
This is kind of cathartic.
yeah yeah therapy system so my my observation with cricket is obviously it's a team sport
but you've got different roles within the team and and you know having watched a little bit i
played a very very minor amount when i was 14 wasn't very good um you've obviously got certain
positions that do a lot of physical you know whether that's you know you think of the fast
bowler kind of like running in you know over after over you know all that kind of pressure
onto that front foot
and, you know,
and through the arm
and whatnot.
And then maybe
the wicketkeeper
or, you know,
someone who stands at slip
doesn't do a huge amount
of exercise.
So was there,
when you think of like
football,
like everyone's,
you know,
rugby,
everyone's kind of
got to be physically fit.
Whereas with cricket,
you could probably get away
in certain positions
not being so fit.
But then as a fast bowler,
probably you need to be
a bit healthy.
Is that,
have I got that right
or is that kind of...
Yeah,
I think
there's certain elements
of that.
I mean,
The difference between rugby is 80 minutes and football is 90 minutes.
Because, you know, I play a test match, it's five days.
Yeah.
But it's a marathon.
It really is like a marathon, not a sprint.
Yeah.
So, yeah, you kind of need the longevity rather than the off the line speed
and pace, really.
As a fast bowler, you just need to be able to keep going until they roll out,
which could sometimes
two days sometimes
it took two hours.
Would that get easier
as the day goes on
or was it kind of like
the first few overs
are quite hard
and then you kind of
warm into it
and then you get into your rhythm
and then the last
your captain is making
your bowl again and again
and you're just
you've got nothing left
in the tank
but you've just got to
keep delivering.
Yeah, it's tough
after tea time.
So you've already
bowled about
15, 20 overs by then
and then you get
asked to come back
after tea
and it's just like
That's when the spinners should be boring.
When you say tea time, I think of it as like, you know,
a cup of tea and a few sandwiches and a bit of cake
and probably I'd quite like a nap afterwards.
That's tea time, yeah?
Yeah, yeah.
Scones, I think it is.
Nothing wants you to go more for a nap than a, you know, scone.
On a nice, hot, sunny day, you'd go lie in a hammock afterwards, wouldn't you?
Did you struggle with fatigue and you think, I've got to keep going?
So what kind of ignites you to go, right, I need to keep pushing on?
I think that sort of team, the team element of it.
You know, you didn't want to let your teammates down.
You were doing the job for the team and, you know,
ultimately that was driving the bigger machine.
I was just a little clogging.
Perhaps not in detail about particular psychology issues,
but just in terms of what support is available to you.
Yeah, there's a psychologist that travels with pretty much every team now.
Sports psychologist or there'll be, you know, different people that dip in and out.
So the psychologist will be there pretty much exclusively.
And then there'll be maybe people that come in like counselors or life coaches or, you know, all sorts of support that you can, probably too much in my opinion.
so you know gets a bit confusing at times but yeah we were spotted really well with
with all that stuff found it really interesting like just chatting to the sports side it's like
well they're trying to get a read on what what you like and how you feel and stuff like that
yeah do they kind of down into um your kind goals and kind of bring out something that they know
you're passionate about to kind of use that to to kind of drive you or i think as a team
you certainly do you go through you know like goal setting seminars and all that sort of stuff
and have big you know get big butcher's papers out and have a brainstorm and
but I just like didn't really didn't really resonate with me yeah I just think if I do my
job to the best of my ability and the next person does their job to the best of their ability then
we'll win as simple as that um and we went we actually went through a period where we did that
really, really well.
You know, everyone knew their role.
Everyone performed it to the best of their ability
and we won pretty much everything.
And that's it.
I think sometimes it's a...
Most games are pretty simple.
England's setup's a little bit different
to the Yorkshire setup.
So, or Warwickshire.
When you're sort of in a pre-season with Yorkshire,
you're all in together.
You know, they like to keep an eye on you
and make sure you're doing the right things
and, you know, the programs.
Like, strength and conditioning is, like, paramount.
for between sort of now, end of October and end of March.
Basically all we do.
You know, an odd person who's trying to make a technical change
might, you know, start doing cricket skills before March,
but I don't really see much point in doing anything before Christmas, certainly.
Just give your body a complete break.
do you like walk into a gym and like what kind of equipment would you head towards or what would
you go what in your head what would you sort of kind of go would you go i'm going to focus on my
elbows today my shoulders today or would you be more kind of holistic with how you trained yeah
probably i think the younger guys are more drawn to the squat rack either the squat rack or the
the deadlift or the Olympic bar, let's just say that,
doing all sorts of different exercises.
I mean, there's strong boys now.
Like, they're powerful.
They're hitting it a long way.
They're bowling it fast for longer.
You know, they've taken it up a notch since I retired even.
But then there's all sorts of other stuff.
You know, you get your little shoulder muscles that are good for throwing
that you can only really get to with an elastic band on the wall
and all sorts of little stuff.
And was there a lot of tuition, you know,
of what exercises you needed to work on
or was it very much like you knew your own body
and, you know, what you had to work on?
No, I mean, as long as, like, through your,
when you're in the gym, you're actually,
without realising it, you're gaining an education.
You know, when the physios are coming around and,
you know, saying or writing stuff into your programmes
that, you know, where you've been weak
or we'll do a full physio screening.
This is where you're strong.
This is where you're weak.
This is what you need to improve.
And then they write up the program from there.
I'm glad you embraced the TheraBands or the Resistance Bands
because patients will say, you need to work on these stability muscles,
rotator cuff muscles, as you described there, Tim.
Yeah.
I think they're actually more important than the beach guns,
I reckon.
No, yeah, we dedicated more time to the sort of little stability muscles,
especially around the core, around your back and your trunk
and the little stabilizing muscles that do a lot of the heavy lifting
when you're doing a dynamic movement.
We dedicated, I'd say, at least 65% to those ones than we did
you know, the beach weights.
Is that kind of,
is that like Pilates moves and stuff?
Yeah, Pilates.
What else do we do?
We've got yoga,
but that's more for stretching than strength.
Yeah, I guess the plyo is just the speed of movement, really.
The fast explosive.
I said that cricketers don't really need the fast explosive things,
but I guess, you know, they do.
using over a really very short frame of time
as like 0.2 of a second when you'd need that.
I used to do a lot of biking as well,
just for the grind and keep the weight off my ankles and knees
because they took a pound during the summer.
In the winter, we'd do a lot of biking or cross-training
or not even running, rowing.
We've got some good hills in Yorkshire to ride around.
Yes, we do.
I really enjoyed it for the time when I was doing it.
Like I said, just sort of time off your feet,
but still giving your fitness beans going and losing weight as well,
which was a constant battle for me.
But yeah, no, I really, really enjoyed it.
Got some massive hills in and around Yorkshire.
Obviously, we have the Tory Yorkshire,
and then we have the
window tour de France
come through here
at one point as well.
The thing I loved
when I watched that
was that they
obviously in France
they've got these
lovely sweeping hills
that wind themselves
up the Alps
or you know
the Pyrenees
and then in Yorkshire
they just go straight
up the hill.
Yeah straight up the hill.
No messing around.
Yeah yeah.
And I guess
with cycling
you know it's that kind of
you talked about
cricket being like
a marathon not a sprint
and actually you know
if you go on a
you know, multiple bike rides is, yeah, it's that kind of sustained endurance rather than kind of,
you know, a quick race, isn't it? So yeah, I can see how that'd be nice. And also, it's a good time
to just, I like cycling. I use it for commuting to work occasionally. It's nice for thinking about
stuff. All the conversations I wish I'd had two weeks later, I can replay them. I'll do a better
version in my mind. Yeah, all the things you wish you had a second in the heat of the moment.
Yeah, totally, totally.
And what I'm interested in is obviously from a kind of elite athlete
and then now retired, have you kept lots of those good practices?
The whole premise of this show is about how you can kind of like stack good habits
to like have a healthier life.
And I guess, you know, you possibly had an unfair advantage
that you've had access to, you know, great equipment and motivational people
and physios and all the care package.
Now you're on the back end of it.
Have you kind of, are things better or things slipped?
When I retired, I did slip
simply because I never wanted to see the inside of a gym again.
Then I was like, oh, I'm looking a bit big.
I need to do something.
So I started running.
And then obviously the first thing that comes
after you start running is a calf.
I forgot I wasn't 23.
Yeah.
Run at 21 kilometers per hour on the treadmill, 38 or whatever.
So yeah, just that constant battle between like nutrition and exercise.
Eat less move more But I was forgetting to eat less I was just eating the same amount and moving a lot less
So I got a big upset.
But now, I'd say,
through nutrition more than anything,
I've actually cut the weight back
to probably where I was when I,
maybe even a little bit lighter
than when I retired
because I don't have the same muscle mass.
So I'm not in the gym lifting weights.
So yeah, I just feel a lot healthier
at the minute, like for the last year and a bit.
I've been on the prep meals since we arrived back in the UK.
Like Hello Fresh kind of things?
Not like Hello Fresh.
It's like there are loads of companies now that just send it in a meal
and you go, I do enjoy cooking, don't get me wrong.
But when you've got three kids and a full-time job and you're like,
well, I want to eat something healthy that takes me five minutes to make,
then you just sling it in the oven or microwave and and it's it's fresh it's good produce it's
healthy it'll be specified probably mine would be low carbs high protein
and yeah we got into those for about a year myself and my wife and we can see that really
see the benefits you know yeah that's great isn't it and and how about from an exercise point of
you then Tim do you um what was your current kind of Monday to Friday uh my exercise routine
at present is I just go for a run um I mean my ankles and knees are fine um for now touch wood
um and I can just go for a you know eight nine ten k's twice three times a week whenever I really
feel like it's more for my top four inches as well like you were saying about the time to think
on the bike that's that's my time to think and i mean i'm getting into the running more
thinking i might do the marathon see but yeah i'm liking the way that it makes me feel and
especially from my body point of view i can feel the weight as well coming off
which is you know healthy for me but then no no i know after that i'll have to get in the gym and
get the muscle tone back as well it's a rotator cuff but do you know what i've got a lot to say
about pilates yoga we were meant to do it which was probably not the right way to make me do
anything and i rather found it my own or you know being explained in a different way but yeah as
As soon as someone makes me do something,
I ain't giving it any sort of...
I ain't giving it any time whatsoever.
A lot of lads loved the yoga.
They loved the Pilates.
It just personally wasn't for me.
I prefer to do the core exercises
using the plank and the Swiss ball
rather than some torture bed
that's going to throw you up at you.
I just...
I was like, what is this?
What's going on here?
But some lads loved it.
It just wasn't for me.
But I did stuff that other lads went into as well.
And I think that's where it all comes down to an individual thing.
You know, there's more than one way it's going to cut
and you can get the same results without performing the same tasks.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And I think it's about what you enjoy, isn't it?
Because if you enjoy it, you're more likely to do it.
And there's so much variety of exercise there.
it's um it's making sure you pick something that you can really get your teeth into there's all
kinds of forms of exercises some people even like functional type exercise where um like you say you
don't have to always be either running or in doing yoga you can just choose the thing that works for
you yeah exactly some people like the maximum effort of exercise like every time and you're like
you're a psychopath.
Why would you want to run yourself to vomit,
vomiting or whirl yourself to vomit
or bite yourself to vomit every single time?
It's just like, yeah, no few guys like that.
You're just like, you're not wired up right.
When you stopped playing,
because obviously with cricket,
you know, it's fully involved,
but also, you know, girlfriend on tour
and, you know, been away from home
for long periods of time.
I'm assuming that you've, you know,
you know, spent a decent amount of time in Australia and South Africa, et cetera.
Did it take a while to get used to like not living that lifestyle
or have you kind of like maintained it by, you know,
going traveling with the kids or whatnot?
Yeah.
Well, we went traveling for two years after I retired with the kids.
So we took them out of school, went traveling for two years.
We finished that with nine months living in Bali,
which was like phenomenal like from a health and well-being point of view
you know you're eating food that's been prepared fresh grown in the country like probably just
down the street and you know it's a really it's a jungle isn't it so it's like a really
good growing environment and you could just get anything you wanted reasonably cheap cheap price
as well so i just found barley really good for my health and well-being and that's kind of where i
kick-started my better go back into the gym phase now and you know i'm really enjoying being healthy
and not drinking as much and just another so yeah we just carried it on from there and we we tend to
go i'll try and get away every single school holiday now now that we're back in the uk which
has its challenges but it's still massively exciting at the same time yeah do you think
Tim your children now are a motivation for keeping yourself fit and healthy because I know for I think
probably for me and Henry I think that's probably a lot of our background to why we want to improve
ourselves now and for the next decade or a few decades ahead so what was your kind of thought on
to move forward through life and are you advising your children based on what you know now what would
you tell your children today based on what you know that's that's a good question i'm not sure
what i'd say to them because i know if they're anything like me as a kid they ain't going to
listen anyway so they have to figure it out for themselves yeah it's true yeah it is i think it
is true um i think i think you are spot on when you say that it's the longevity of your life and
you want to actually still live your life as you get older i still want to be i still want to be
able to do the things I want to do when I'm 65. I enjoy around the golf to be still doing
that when I'm 65. But obviously I know a lot of people that can't. Not because they're
unwilling, it's just because they're not fit enough to be able to do it. And I want to
have the flexibility in my joints and my muscles. It's not like I want to be an Ironman or anything.
I just want to be able to fit enough to have a run for golf when I'm 6'5 and still, you know, compete, I guess.
Or anything, play football with the kids or, you know, go swimming with them or whatever it is.
I wouldn't be able to do that.
So I guess you're right.
That's like a totally normal answer.
and but yeah there seems to be this kind of like disconnect where that kind of you know living in
the moment you know everything's about kind of like you know instant gratification or whether
it's like you know what can i have now or you know um yeah whether it's you know living your
life kind of thing but not thinking you know actually well is there going to be negative
things for that actually you know because uh you know paining health and being healthy whether
that's through exercise or, you know, how you sleep in or what food you're eating and
stuff. A lot of it means that you have to, you either have to put in the hard grind and
whether that's go for a run three times a week or, you know, it's, you know, eating,
you know, healthy food, et cetera. Yeah, I guess it requires a bit of effort. You have
to be intentional of like, actually, I am thinking, you know, not just for tomorrow
or next week, I'm thinking kind of 10, 20, 30 years. And I think when you like talk to
people and say, oh, do you want to be fit and healthy when you're 65 so you can still
play golf with your brother or whatever?
Most people would say, yes.
I don't think you'd meet anyone who'd be like, no, I'd rather be sick and not healthy.
But then actually meaning that actually I've got to do stuff now because if I want to get
to that point, I can't just arrive there and then solve it.
Actually, I need to start thinking about these things, you know, while I still, you know,
while I've got time on my side.
I also think, you know, with social media, there is a lot more access to good, better advice for people.
Where to the point where I think health and well-being has become a thing that you can like the content that you consume.
Like we're talking about it now on the podcast that you guys have set up.
you know it stands to reason that
there are other people offering
similar advice to
even
in terms of like supplements and things like that
that I'll take
now that I couldn't take
while I was playing cricket
like micro dosing mushrooms
and all that kind of stuff
yeah I mean
why not give it a try
totally
yeah
Would that have been a no-no as an elite athlete?
Well, yes, I think it's probably banned.
Yeah.
It's illicit and substance, yeah.
Yeah.
Help you expand your mind for your bowling technique.
Yeah, well, do you know what?
Most of the drugs for cricket don't even work.
Do they not know?
Yeah.
No.
like why would you need um ipo or what was it epo or whatever like that it's not gonna work for
crickets it's like 96 skill based game yeah yeah is it is cricket more akin to say golf where it's
it's more about you've got to have the skill and then put the training in and then of course being
fit and healthy means you can be a better around and you can have longevity whereas something i'm
not saying football or rugby,
it doesn't have the skill,
but you can learn that stuff
and then just be,
if you're a big chap
and you're physically fit
and you can smash through people,
then you'd probably be quite good at rugby.
Yeah.
I mean,
yeah,
unless there's a drug out there
that could slow down time,
which I don't believe there is,
then there is no advantage
to taking any drug
performance and handsome advantage,
in my opinion.
Yeah, yeah.
Which was a lot of...
But would you still been tested for, you know, all the usual steroids and all the, you know, EPA?
Yeah, so they fall under the WADA.
We got tested for the same things that Olympians got tested for.
Yeah, okay.
So it's the World's Anti-Doping Authority.
Yeah, yeah.
Which was completely bonkers.
Because I'm getting tested for the same things that Usain Bolt's getting tested for.
I'm like, yeah.
There's no advantage for me to take anything that he would take
and no advantage for him to take anything that I would take.
So everything just...
Blanche, ban on everything, performing as Lansing.
Sudafed, match strength, something inside there that was just a no.
You can't have that.
It was a list as long as your arm and your leg
of stuff that you couldn't take.
Even every time you enter a pharmacy, I feel a bit like a cold.
You go in with your app on your phone and you go, right,
take a picture of that one.
And if it flashed up, you know you can't have that.
You just go, all right, then paracetamol is again.
You know, that is one of the downsides.
And knowing full well if you had a dodgy supplement,
you were probably going to get caught and banned.
It's like constant fear.
The constant fear of supplements and stuff.
whereas to the point where I was just like, nah, I ain't having any of that.
No way.
Oh, it's just whey protein.
Don't care.
I'm not taking it.
So how would you get your protein in then, Tim?
Did you work with a nutritionist to kind of talk about how to get some protein in your food?
Yeah, basically it boiled down to a trip to Nando's.
More or something than not.
I mean, cricket's best friend.
I think athlete's best friend is Nando's.
It's tasty, it's convenient, it's quick, and you get all your protein,
all your carbs and everything that you need.
I mean, there are other stuff as well.
So I'm allergic to eggs, which is like a real big one for breakfast.
So obviously you get a protein hit at breakfast time.
Most people just go straight down the egg route, whereas I can't do that.
I'm allergic.
So it's like, well, what else is there?
So it's, yeah.
left off
eight vashes of bacon
yeah
is that your breakfast?
yeah
cream cheese
not cream cheese
cottage cheese
is high protein
yeah
beans
and a ribeye
second side
and a ribeye
yeah
well steak
yeah
for breakfast
I mean
I have done that
but yeah
like something like that
to
to replace the fact that I couldn't have three, four poached eggs in the morning
on some toast to start my day.
So were you given guidelines of what you should be eating
or were you cooked for or how did it work?
What was there?
Absolutely, yeah.
Depending what training phase we were in or whether we were in a playing phase,
most of my training phases were, again, because I struggled with my weight,
It was a shredding phase, trying to get a bit leaner.
So it was steak or chicken breast, a lot of spinach.
Oh, my God, I got so bored of spinach.
Blended spinach, spinach on a plate.
Spinach just because it's spinach.
You're just like, oh, my God.
Stop making me spinach.
Yeah, all sorts of other stuff.
I had a nutritionist for a little while who was working one-on-one,
and he said, go out, buy a juicer.
I'm like, okay.
And he just gave me a load of these juice recipes,
which were actually really nice,
like juices and smoothies and all that kind of stuff
to the point where all I was consuming was juices and smoothies
just to cook weight and get the nutrition I needed.
One of my favorite juices is because I had a 10-wood juicer
and me and my missus got into it for a little bit.
Was all of the, well, one, cleaning it was an absolute pain in the ass.
But also you created all of this kind of like fodder, you know,
because obviously you're just extracting the juice
and now you've got all of this kind of like stuff.
So we just used to put it on the compost.
But of course, then you learn that like, oh, actually there's good fiber in that.
And now you're just taking all the fiber out.
And so you've got the juice and you're getting, you know,
we should be start eating the fodder.
Anyway and then of course you go on the internet And there a recipe for like you know uh juice blend falafel ball and anyway we made them and they were rank yeah so actually i gone back
more to the the nutri bullet smoothie because actually at least you're getting the whole
everything you put you put fruit in there you're getting all of it rather than just the the liquid
and and they're easier to clean but anyway i don't know i don't know if i monitored the benefits
what would you say hayley is it good to keep the fiber in or take it out
Well, actually, some of the science is changing to trying to eat just the food whole so that you don't miss out the fiber.
Because if you're blending it up, then you actually bypass the whole bowel system and the intestine system to actually break down and extract some of the nutrients out of the food.
So there are health benefits to just eating it as it is.
But that would be quite maybe putting your spinach into your pizzas or whatever, rather than trying to always blend it.
but maybe doing a mixture of both so you get the benefits from the two.
Sometimes the better way to do it.
I'm also interested in, like, Tim now, so do you have physio nowadays
and how much physio did you used to have when you did have physio?
So we'd only see the physio if we had an issue,
whether that be something that was tight or an actual bona fide injury
or something that felt like a bona fide injury that probably wasn't
and the physio just laid down and you're like,
oh, yeah, that feels just fizzy.
We saw a lot of the massage therapist, more often than not.
It would be that that would be in the routine
rather than a trip to the physio.
But, yeah, obviously I saw a fair share of physios in my time.
But, yeah, it was more massage and stuff like that for me.
Yeah, and did the physios work with quite a lot of prevention,
knowing the injuries that you either were susceptible to,
especially in cricket with the fast speed,
say the endurance side of the sport?
Did they used to guide any of your kind of personal trainers
or exercise trainers to kind of say, right, we need to get this in?
Yeah, so the SNC would work very closely with the physio
on each individual program.
So it was like, right, you do your physio screening,
then your S&C screening, like, right, they get their heads together.
And all right, this is where he's weak from my point of view.
This is where he's weak from your point of view.
Let's build something into his program that is going to help him
or strengthen these areas for basically injury prevention.
That is all S&C is used for injury prevention mainly
because these are, well, now, when I first started playing,
these are all fit young athletes, whereas, you know,
when I first started playing, you had a few older guys
that were a little bit tubby and overweight.
So, yeah, nowadays, it's all injury prevention.
That's all S&C is, getting you powerful enough, fit enough,
and strong enough to do the job for the entire year.
um that's basically always yeah great and do you remember any of the tests that they used to
test you for like was it like how long can you hold a certain weight over your head for or like
what kind of things did they make you do yeah so um we had leap test that turned into the yo-yo test
that was more s and c thing we had vertical jump that was a power thing had uh oh there was
six different vertical jumps we did some techniques and one legged and all that sort of stuff
then we had a sit and reach test i'm mixing these in by the way one's physio one's s and c
i can't remember which one there was one rep max for squat bench press i think there were pull-ups
as well, like maximum effort
pull-ups, calf raises, maximum effort.
Then you had stuff like
bridges, so plank,
side plank,
that was all three minutes
minimum, but
it was
three minutes, so he failed, basically.
Three minutes was a long time as well.
Could you do three minutes now, Tim?
I think I probably could, you know.
Yeah.
Not signed.
I think my side would probably go,
but I think my car has just got that used to it
over the years and that strong
that I could probably do it.
Yeah.
And also, isn't it,
a lot of it's in your head, isn't it?
Knowing that you can...
So much of it.
Overcome it.
Yeah, yeah.
That you can just power through.
So much of it.
And do you feel like,
because you've kind of pushed your body
for a long period of time,
that you kind of,
you know that you've got that kind of resilience
to like, I know I can go faster and longer.
Yeah.
Whereas...
Me, I would just give up a bit.
Don't know.
I'm not saying you're stronger than that.
You're stronger than you think you are.
Yeah, yeah, totally.
No, I think you are.
It was like a top four inches.
I once had a conversation with one of the coaches who,
he was a player and then he became a coach.
He was one of my good mates.
And he was like, he'd not done anything for a couple of years.
He'd been coaching and I'm doing the yo-yo test.
and he's like, I could still beat you at the yo-yo test.
I was like, so?
He's like, I could still beat you at the yo-yo test.
You're not fit enough.
I was like, the test isn't to beat you though, is it?
The test is to beat this number that you've written down
and that's the test.
Like, if the test was to beat you, I'd be you.
And he's like, no, you won't.
I was like, yeah, I would.
He's like, you never could.
You never could back in the day, like when I was fit.
I was like, yeah, but the test wasn't to beat you.
If the test was to beat you, I'd have done that.
And he just couldn't wrap his head around like my mental process
instead of his mental process, do you know?
Which was a massive learning curve for me,
like learning how to deal with him as a coach.
It was quite funny.
And I said to him, mate, like you've got this house backwards.
I don't think the way that you think.
like that's just not we're different we're why i look different and that again everyone's
different it likes different things different exercises different foods different techniques
what kind of um so you had to eat a lot of proteins a lot of eggs um a lot of spinach
not sorry on eggs uh chicken and nandos and whatnot do you um have you have you kind of
continued that or like you you still waking up and having eight rashes of bacon and a nandos to
finish or or or is your whole approach to food changed i'd say it has yeah i don't eat uh i don't
eat uh word this it was food was fuel yeah right that's all it was when now i have a better
relationship with food um do you think that was right do you think that do you think from a kind
of sportsman point of view do you think having that approach that food is just fuel is the right
way to go about it?
Absolutely not.
And would you do things
differently if you
went back to
Tim the Cricketer?
I'm not sure I'd be able to.
I just had one of those
figures, like,
all I had to do was
look at a jam donut
and I was like,
bang, that's two
mils on the skinnies
straight away.
And you're like,
yeah, yeah.
Like, I just had one
of those body types,
you know.
Don't come work
at my bakery, Tim.
Well, I know.
I'd have to look at
it out.
Oh God, I love it.
That crusty roll with some extra virgin all the while
and some balsamic vinegar.
I'm getting on my own.
You're staring at me as well from the car.
My whole approach is I'm not a nutritionist
or particularly sciencey.
I want to be healthy because I want to still do stuff
on the mold with the kids and the grandkids
if we have them.
um yeah for me food has always been about like flavor and enjoyment it's not like that kind of
when people say food is just fuel you know it kind of like a little bit of me dies it's kind of
because my my no i'm not i'm not but like my whole life has been built around you know food for
enjoyment and like that you know the pleasure of the process you know like making it and then
the enjoyment of people eating it but i also think that actually for me you know if you're
cooking good quality ingredients and you're cooking from scratch and you're you know you're
putting care and attention to it actually i think it's actually quite healthy you know um and that
it doesn't you know okay if i spent my whole time making homemade jam donuts and eating them i'd
probably put on quite a lot of weight but then you know as a rational adult i know that donuts
are nice but just once in a while not not part of a balanced diet i think like obviously we're
We're talking about people being individuals, right?
So I viewed fuels, like food as fuel,
because that's the way I had to look at it
to achieve the goals that I'd been set.
Certain other people could eat,
just live off cheeseburgers that I knew.
I'm only saying cheeseburgers because there's one behind.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They would be absolutely fine
and be able to perform, operate, get everything they needed,
not put on any weight.
But that's their individual thing that they could do.
Jimmy Anderson could eat whatever the hell he wanted,
when he wanted, and as much of it as he could,
and not put on a single ounce of body fat.
Whereas all I had to do was, like I said,
look at a bag of fish and chips and bang,
That's another two hours on the voting machine for me.
You know?
Yeah.
It's just that some things just weren't fair.
Life isn't fair, is it?
And that's the individualistic way of it.
The interesting thing with that, though, Tim,
is that everyone, like you say, people store their fat differently.
It's not to say that that's not actually going around as visceral fat
around people's organs, even though they don't show it as physical body fat.
Yeah.
like you say is it probably it was probably a healthier option for you to kind of see it because
then you act on it whereas if people can't see it and they're kind of slender or slim
they might not have that same urgency to think okay actually i need to really think about what
i'm doing here because as henry says food food isn't just um fuel that you should enjoy it but
then the type of food you're putting in it's a bit like a car isn't it putting your petrol in the car
you want to put the best petrol in you're not going to switch between diesel and a leather
you need to always put the right little limb.
I think I was just unlucky enough that I stored all my fat
exactly where they pinched you for it to get the...
Those squeezy testing.
Oh, yeah, that testing.
Yeah.
So they get their little calipers out, stick them on your bicep, your tricep.
Like there's three across there, which was like just, oh, my God.
I struggle there so much.
your calf, your thigh,
underneath and on top.
Eight sides.
And you had to be under 80 millimeters
of skin fold.
You had to be under 80 millimeters
from eight sides.
Yeah.
So when you did my belly board
and it's like at 27
and you're like,
got nothing to play with here.
It's from anywhere else, you know.
When would they check this?
And then what would be the consequence
if you failed that test?
A fat club.
Okay.
Yeah.
So more spinach.
More spinach.
I actually got told one time that if I came back over 80
that I'd lose my central contract with England.
So consequences for it?
That's a massive consequence, yeah.
Huge.
So how did you deal with the pressure?
how would you
what kind of strategies did you
take to kind of deal with
all the pressures that you faced
I just want to eat
which is not the healthy way
is it
but that's what
someone's telling me to do
obviously the
S&Cs are saying no you can't say that
or the nutritionist is going no
you can't
hold this lab to
this amount of
Skinfalls is clearly an unbelievable specimen.
I was so fit.
I've never been looked fitter.
So you look in the mirror, you go,
Jesus, I look like Zac Efron or whatever.
And then as soon as you get the calipers out,
I was hung in one or hung in three or something like that,
knowing that to get down to 80.
It looks and seems impossible.
And did they do that as a blanket?
it they were they were the markers or would they work out based on you know people's body body
forms or or ages or no no it was the calipers and the it wasn't a percentage of your body fat
which would have been so much better for me because they had the technology to measure it
they had the technology to measure like the bod pod and all that sort of stuff which
measured everything bone density body fat the water and your system all that sort of stuff
They had the technology just across the road, but they preferred to use the, yeah, the Stone
Age callipers, which I never got it.
And obviously it used to affect me quite a lot from a nutrition and fitness point of view.
Yeah.
Your bone density, Tim, now must be superb with all the exercise you've done, all that
high impact.
Yeah.
I reckon.
I think it was just that.
I drank a lot of milk as a kid and apparently that's good for your bones, isn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah. I actually only broke. So you, a lot of cricketers will break stuff all the time.
Like there's cricketers out there that just every time they've got weak, like macaroni
fingers or whatever, you know, and they'll get hit on the gloves and it'll be like, oh
dear, that's another broken finger. Like that never really seemed to happen to me. I only
had the elbow and a couple of stress factors in my back and that was it um so yeah I think bone
density is one of those things that that's another individual thing isn't it yeah yeah definitely
and how's how's the back now Tim do you suffer with it now or is everything kind of healed and
not too bad or do you get aches and pain yeah I was yeah um I had uh the first first couple of
times I had stress reactions and then I had a proper full fracture.
Never needed surgery back there, like on my back.
A lot of burglars did need surgery.
So I got away quite lucky.
Just an extended sort of break, maybe eight, nine weeks before you do anything and then
build it up really slowly.
A lot of collar exercises, a lot of Swiss ball circles and all that sort of stuff.
Yeah, touch wood, my back's fine.
Not really had an issue.
Do you do back stretches each morning or do you just are you not lucky and you okay with it Because of all your other exercise I fine yeah Sometimes I do I tell you where I struggle My hip flexors must be something in the way I run or walk or sleep
or lay on the sofa and I'll sit.
Maybe sat at a desk most of the time now.
But my hip flexors, I struggle with my hip flexors and IT bands as well.
Got my sides going sometimes.
I was giving my room.
Seems to be all right.
And then a couple of stretches and then I'm fine.
Yeah, you might find it's the sitting.
They shorten and tighten your hip flexors with more sitting
after what you're used to.
Yeah.
Well, more standing, wasn't it?
Yeah.
Five days in a fifth.
Yeah.
Well, is there any kind of, you know,
do you have any kind of like parting advice or like what would be
a good healthy habit that you would recommend for either yourself or for, you know, for people
listening that you would say would be valuable for them?
I'd say cut down your alcohol consumption.
Yeah, that's a tricky one there.
I think it's worse than anything.
Like, looking back, I used to drink way too much, but it was more social and celebrating
as a team.
But after I finished, we'd still drink the same amount, you know.
And as soon as I stopped, you feel better in the morning.
You're able to sleep better, regulate yourself better.
And as I get older, the humovers were just getting worse.
Like when you look forward and you go, oh, yeah, you know,
I fancy two beers tonight, but not going to enjoy it tomorrow.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like, yeah.
have you tried
any of the
like the low alcohol
beers
yeah
I'm not a big Guinness drinker
but I love a Guinness
and actually
I'm quite pleased
that the
the zero Guinness
is actually
pretty good
yeah it's not
it's not a Guinness
you know it's not a Guinness
no no no
but I think
because it's got the
the froth
it kind of
because quite often
the low alcohol ones
can taste a bit thin
and a bit missing
I used to make my own beer
during lockdown I got really into making very strong IPAs,
which are quite dangerous when you've –
the thing I like about it is they were tax-free
because obviously I was just drinking from my own consumption,
and you'd make something that's like 6%, 7%,
and, you know, it touches the sides.
But, yeah, but then obviously you start building these bad habits
maybe in the wrong direction.
Do you know what I've been trying to hear?
So my favourite beer at the minute is the 2% Amstel Radler.
Okay.
It is beautiful.
It's like, so nice.
Like the lemon just comes through and cuts it like it's 2%.
You know you're not, you're not gonna, but you're still enjoying a nice beer and it just,
yeah, beautiful.
But you can't buy it here.
You can't buy it in Spain and Portugal.
Okay.
Have you tried, have you, um, it was those, uh, the Scottish, uh, uh, brewery, uh, Brulo,
They are low alcohol ones, but they're made really high quality ingredients.
And actually, when you try them, you get that real nice kind of hoppy flavors come through.
Yeah, they're nice.
And they're like, I think, 0.5%.
So you get the kind of like the ritual of having a beer, but without all the kind of negative consequences.
Because you want to still be social, right?
Because that's a big part of our health and well-being at the same time.
like you still want to be social social animals and yeah that's good for your top four inch but
you know you just don't want the handover that comes with it yeah do people kind of expect you
to be a bigger drinker with the kind of um background of being a cricketer do they they
kind of are they quite shocked now when they kind of meet you and think actually he's really in
fitness i don't think so i i think the world is moving forward at the same rate that
you know cricket probably should have done it got stuck behind other spots for a little while but
that's it's caught up you know whereas most the the education around alcohol and all that
that comes with it is just is a lot better i think and they still celebrate their wins they're just
doing a little bit differently yeah yeah okay they will chuck a couple of bottles of really
nice white wine in the fridge
rather than having
16 beers, you know?
So it's like, do you know what? We're celebrating
and we're going to really enjoy it and drink
something nice rather than
a lot of something that's going to make you
feel terrible.
I guess if you're having your champagne moment
and actually it's a bottle of Schlürr, it's not
quite got the same.
Yeah.
But most of it
gets sprayed out anyway.
Some of it does.
would you ever plunge yourself into um would you ever plunge yourself into any of these ice
ice baths and things like that tim oh take that as a no so well i had a not a physical altercation
but it was close with the with the snc or the one of the coaches over ice baths
and i was like you can't prove that that does anything for me i just want to go home and sleep
I'm not getting in there.
It's already cold outside.
I don't want to get in a bath of ice-cold water.
And they were like, no, no, it's good for you physiological.
I was like, prove it.
Show me.
Show me where it says that.
Because my argument was, you can't prove that makes me better
in my body better.
But I know for a fact that it's going to put me in filthy nick mentally
being made to do something I don't want to do.
so that was my argument yeah yeah yeah so i i always refused ice baths they weren't for me
but again other people really really enjoyed them and got into them um i must say though since i've
retired i have been i have gone to like a whatever ice bath facility but i mainly go for the sauna
it's quiet yeah so i i've built a sauna in my uh shed it was a bit of a summer project my wife had
a big long list of things that needed to be done the sauna wasn't one of them but i've i've now
built the sauna now i'm spending a lot of time in it but um at the moment i just spread i've got
like the hose pipe and i just use that as a as a kind of um and just to like cool down but uh but
i've been thinking about you know do i put an ice bath in and i don't know i i've been in them
without going in the sauna and they're not very enjoyable.
Yeah.
Like a plunge pool after a sauna, I can get on with that.
I can get, that's absolutely fine, right?
When it's 10 degrees outside and you're coming in and you're cold anyway,
go and sit in that bath full of ice for me.
No.
There you go.
No interest whatsoever.
I'm on you with that one.
But I assume you kind of valued sleep, I get the impression,
because sleep's really important for recovery and healing, isn't it?
Really important.
Yeah, really important.
Yeah.
I mean, we used to sleep a lot during the game
just to get that recovery.
So if we say you're bowling over two days
and you bowl them out just before lunch on day two,
it was quite common for us to sleep all afternoon
while the lads were out there grinding and batting them.
so we'd have a big lunch
you'd get the
you'd sit in the room
and the lights
you'd still have the TV on
so you knew what was going on
and the guys knew
to come and wake you up
if you
if anything happened
in the game
and you needed to
you know
put your bad pals on or anything
but yeah we'd
dim the lights
put a bit of sleep spray out
and just
make it a really comfortable
environment to
to get that recovery
I viewed sleep
more important than anything
yeah
Even though when you woke up and you're like, oh my God, I'm so stiff.
You can't, you know, you can't get going again.
But yeah, those are just the moments you have to get through.
Would you do much of a warm up?
Just again, before you go back out?
Yeah.
Yeah, you'd have to get yourself going again.
Definitely.
Just, I guess, hot bath.
So I have to wake up from sleep.
if you've got time, jump in a hot bath.
That was my favourite thing.
Just to get your muscles going
and then you just jog about for a bit
and maybe get over the ladders in the changing rooms,
hit a few balls if you've got time
and then go out and back.
But hopefully the lads made it through
until the end of the play.
Yeah, yeah.
Before you had to do it.
And you could just sit there and snooze all afternoon.
Yeah.
And then go there and have a nice meal
and then go to bed.
So you must have had it where you've been bowling,
you know, relentlessly, you know, day and a half or whatever,
and then, you know, the batters go out,
and then, you know, you get that top order collapse,
and then suddenly...
Yeah.
Because you were like the kind of middle order, weren't you?
Yeah, so about between six and eight, probably.
Yeah.
And then you find yourself...
Far too many times.
so you'd bowl for they'd get 500 and plenty and you'd be out there 140 overs and then you'd go
oh finally like we're off we're off the park like what a feeling you'd sit down for 20 minutes have
a bite to eat and then you'd just be getting comfy in your little sleeping pods and now you've got to
go put your pads on you're like because yeah and is that is that where the kind of the mental
you know because
if that happened to me
I would be feeling
kind of like
a bit peed off
and you know
I'd get over it
but it would take me
a little while
would you try and
would you
would you try and get out
into the middle of the pitch
over it
or would you still be
a little bit
you know kind of
pissed off and seething
facing that first ball
you'd get over it
obviously try and do
the best for the team
yeah of course
if
if you think
so that
in cricket
that situation
would have a bit of
a silver lining
right? Because we've done
140 overs
and then we're
I don't know, say 90 for 5 or something
that's a pretty heavy collapse
right? You knew you weren't
getting past the follow on
so even though you've done 140
overs, you knew you only really had to
do it once
So it's like
Oh I see, you're like, oh I don't need to bowl again
Yeah, we're going to lose this, let's lose it quickly
Well exactly
Quick game's a good game, isn't it?
unless you've been out there for, you know, you've done 500,
but, you know, there's nothing worse than having to back that up
with another 20 over spell on day four and five.
So if the batters absolutely stuff it, then they kind of,
you only have to do it once.
From a pun, because the thing I love about cricket is that
there was a team sport, it's like a team sport
with like little individual battles.
And, you know, in those moments when it's either the, you know,
you know Ben Stokes is out there
and he's whacking them for six and it's
building or it's the you know you're out
there bowling and you know you're putting
pressure on and it's like changing that you know
changing the momentum
of the game and a lot of that really exciting
stuff happens well I in my
opinion on that last day when everyone
snatched and they probably wanted to be over
did you like did you live and
love those moments or
did it just feel like going through the motions
yeah the sort of the
runs on day like
last session day five or like champo last session day four and the best ones
they're the best ones to be involved in because you've you've worked so hard to achieve something
and you know you couldn't have like you couldn't have put any more in to getting the result that
you want and yeah going into the game that you knew that that could have been the only way
that you could have won was being the last session of day four, you know?
So you've got to put all that hard work in four days' worth
or five days' worth.
And, yeah, it's like a sense of achievement when you get a win after that.
Yeah, definitely.
And did you do much to wind down as well?
How would you come down from that, Tim?
How did you do with it?
Yeah, I mean, like, I don't know, like a golf course or traveling or just a day.
Sometimes I just enjoyed a day of crap TV, morning TV.
Just something, anything to switch off.
Yeah, just like life in general.
Anything away from the game is you are actually switching off from the game.
Normality again.
I mean, some people are on constantly, like they can't switch off.
which is tough, but I never really found that difficult.
Like, my wife didn't know the first thing about cricket,
which was brilliant.
Yeah.
Because she'd never asked me about it when I got home.
She's like, how'd you get on?
Yeah, good.
All right, yeah, nice.
No, I thought she wouldn't care either way, you know.
It was perfect for me.
Yeah.
It's worse when you, like, you speak to people
or someone phones you up, like, say your parents phone you up,
Your dad's talking to you about, oh, why did you come round the wicket?
So-and-so.
You're just like, no, I'm switched off.
It's not an interesting kind of thing.
So, yeah, I never really found it difficult switching off.
Well, thank you so much for your time, Tim.
It's been so interesting hearing a bit of your story
and just hearing about all the kind of, you know,
your approach to food and health and whatnot.
and I'm definitely going to look at my alcohol consumption
and see whether there's anywhere that I can cut a bit out.
Of course it's Guinness.
Definitely a bite of mine.
Awesome.
And thank you for talking about the physio side
because that's a very rare side that we often hear about.
Thank you for sharing a bit at the beginning about your injuries.
I know that was tough to talk about,
but we appreciate your time and telling us about your training program
because I'm sure everyone's found that extremely interesting to hear.
Any last words for us, Tim, for anyone listening about how to be good at cricket
or any top tips?
Oh, how to be good at cricket.
I think it stems from enjoyment of it, really.
Anything that you want to get good at stems from the enjoyment of it,
in my opinion.
You have to really enjoy it and then just, yeah, have fun.
Just have fun playing it and enjoying it.
And then, you know, if it develops into a career, then great.
But still enjoy it.
Because sometimes I went through a period where it's like,
shit, this has become more than a hobby now.
It's become more than something that I really enjoy.
It's actually become a way of paying the bills,
which is a lot of pressure and a different sort of mindset
that you need to wrap your head around.
Yeah.
So, yeah, just keep enjoying it.
Whatever you do, just enjoy it.
Brilliant.
Wise words.
Thank you Tim, thank you so much, we've thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you again.
No worries, thank you very much.