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Glos coach Mark Thorburn among highest qualified after earning Master’s degree in Strength and Conditioning

10 February 2022

Gloucestershire coach Mark Thorburn has become one of the highest qualified in County Cricket after achieving a Master’s degree in Sport, Strength and Conditioning.

Fast Bowling Coach and Analyst Thorburn, who has worked at Glos for 16 years, graduated from the University of Gloucester in 2021 as a Master of Science in his chosen field. He spent four years studying part-time to achieve the demanding qualification, while also juggling a busy home and work life, and believes his new-found knowledge will allow him to become a “better coach”.

Having completed his Level 4 Elite Coaching Award in 2012, the highest coaching qualification handed out by the ECB, Thorburn said his decision to take on the degree was born out of a desire to not only improve his own coaching capabilities, but also help The Shire’s players improve as athletes.

“I feel very fortunate to do what I do, we ask a lot of our guys (players) and in turn I think we, as coaching staff, are continually striving to make improvements and develop our knowledge”, said former medium-fast bowler, Thorburn.

He added: “I’d been in my current role for about four or five years and I’d started to feel as though I was ready to take on another challenge with the Master’s degree.

 “It was a very personal thing to take on for me; my dad passed away a year or so before and I used some of the money he left me to pay for the course. He had always been really supportive of me and my career so it felt like a really good cause to put that towards.”

Thorburn’s new qualification has provided him with a “unique blend of skills”, he said, the likes of which are rare for a top level bowling coach in County Cricket.

His new skillset includes a deeper understanding of the physical demands of the game on cricketers, specifically bowlers, and will allow him to more accurately optimize the coaching of players and reduce injury prevalence within the squad. This will see him work in tandem with the Club’s science and medical staff to successful manage players’ workload, injury risk and physical development.

Thorburn said: "In terms of the topic, Strength and Conditioning, there’s a huge link between that and what I do as a coach in terms of athletic development and understanding workload management. It’s those sorts of things that are really pertinent to fast bowling so I just wanted to get a deeper understanding of those topics to help me become a better coach.”

“My motivation is to have the greatest depth of knowledge for what makes up performance to ultimately help the players continually improve. It’s really important for us as coaches to understand what wins and loses us games, where we’re strong and where we’re weak, both individually and as a team.

“Our objective is to try to reduce the amount of days lost through injury. I will be working more closely with the science and medicine staff and will look to assist them in understanding the specific attributes we want the guys to develop physically, particularly the bowlers, and that will influence our workload management of the players and programmes we put in place on the cricket side of things.”

Speaking of his pride at graduating with his Master’s degree, Thorburn said he’s been able to focus on implementing his updated skillset throughout this year’s off-season, and will look to build on the foundations laid during winter when the season gets underway in April.

Thorburn added: “Because fast bowling is so physically demanding, it’s the skillset we give the most time to as a science and medical team, in terms of what we do to keep them on the park or when injuries do happen, how we get them back out there as quickly and as safely as possible.

“It was a good challenge and to get it over the line (the degree) was great.

“In some respects it has wetted my appetite to continue on this journey; I think I’ll be keeping an eye out for what might come next.”  

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