Nottinghamshire’s winter recruitment has extended to behind the scenes of the professional staff, with the arrival of Strength & Conditioning coach Ross Herridge to Trent Bridge.

After cutting his teeth at hometown Reading FC, Herridge was keen to make the switch to cricket and test himself in a new sport. 

"As well as working at Reading for two years, the club I support, which was quite interesting, I also worked in Fencing last year,” he said.

“It’s a technical sport, slightly similar to cricket in some respects. That was an interesting change from football.

“You need to learn and understand each sport. In terms of strength and conditioning, the principles are the same and you just need to take it to each sport.” 

With Nottinghamshire’s players already beginning their winter programmes after a month away, Herridge has had his first exposure to the professional staff and is looking to impose his own ethos on the Outlaws in a bid to put them in the best possible shape for the 2015 campaign.

“I’ve got my philosophy on how I think strength and conditioning should be done and I’ll tailor that to cricket and the specifics of the sport and what will be needed for each player,” he said. 

“I’m not a massive fan of beasting the players. Between now and Christmas a lot of that needs to happen, it’ll be very general fitness until then.

“They’ll all have individual programmes which focus on their weaknesses an then from there we’ll tailor it after Christmas.

“We’ll base those around power-based movements and technical training.”

Despite this being Herridge’s first steps into cricket in a professional manner, Trent Bridge isn’t unfamiliar territory for Nottinghamshire’s new S&C. A childhood cricket fan, he has been helped in his integration by former colleague Jon Alty, who plied his physiotherapy trade alongside Herridge at Reading. 

“I watched a lot of international cricket and t20 matches but was never really involved in playing. I used to play in school but frankly I was rubbish,” he said.

“Part of the job is immersing myself in cricket to a deeper level than I have already.

“This is an excellent ground, the staff are lovely and everyone has made me feel welcome.

“The coaching staff have given me a lot of responsibility, let me do what I want to do and I have free reign.

"Myself and Jon worked together at Reading FC, we work well together and had success there so the fire has been rekindled and we’ll go again here.”