Hibs back to work - the hard science behind gruelling pre-season sessions

Ready for your beep test? David Gray will be watching closely as players return for testing. | SNS Group

The level of effort required has remained a constant, regardless of changing trends and scientific advances. The Hibs players reporting to East Mains for pre-season training this morning will expect to be worked as hard as any of their predecessors down the generations.

But the depth of support available to elite level footballers, the insight gained and shared with athletes fully invested in their own personal programmes of self-improvement, has changed how players view the annual ritual of being pushed to breaking point. And then urged to go just a little bit further.

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As David Gray presides over his first proper shift in the role of manager, he’ll spend much of today observing and encouraging, listening and talking to both his players and the experts responsible for helping them reach peak condition. Hibs head of sports science Colin Clancy will be ready to answer any questions – from coaches or footballers – as he assesses the squad’s readiness for intense competition.

Catching up with the Evening News after a busy day of preparation yesterday, Clancy said: “We’ve got everything set for them to come in and do their testing tomorrow. On day one, we go through a number of tests related to their physical capabilities. That ranges from body composition and skin folds through to physical tests of endurance, strength, power and all the main components of fitness they need for the long season ahead.

“We test a number of times across the season so, certainly with the current players, we already have a bank of data telling us where they should be – and where they are relative to the rest of the squad. That helps us plan for the next six weeks.

Jake Doyle-Hayes will be thrilled to be back in pre-season training after series of injury problems.

“There is some gym-based testing where we measure strength, some power and jumps using force plates, then we go out on the pitch and do some endurance testing. They’ll do a thousand-metre run where we’ll record their max heart rates; it’s a time trial, effectively.

“They’ve had five weeks off, which is quite a long time – the longest we’ve had for a few years. But players are a bit more informed about how to look after themselves, so they don’t come back drastically out of shape, the way some did 15 or 20 years ago.

“Fitness is a lifestyle thing for them now. Generally they keep themselves fit and keep their bodies strong all year round. We expect a little bit of a drop-off, but they all come back ready.

“So the modern pre-season is probably closer to in-season training than it ever has been. We can now focus on the football components because they’ve all been doing running over the close season.

“They all got a couple of weeks off and then they were given a three-week build-up to come back into pre-season. It’s about us getting eyes on them and seeing how they are.”

The quartet of Hibs first-teamers involved in World Cup qualifiers during the summer break – Martin Boyle, Nathan Moriah-Welsh, Rocky Bushiri and Jojo Wollacott – have all been given an extra week off to recover. Then they’ll pick up exactly where their team-mates are starting today.

If the approach of players has changed, so has the ability of strength and conditioning experts to tailor programmes to individuals. It’s not all about the numbers. Even if there is now more data than ever available to the specialists.

“Talking to players is a big part of it, as well,” insists Clancy. “We can see how they benchmark compared to the squad, but it’s important to speak to players and ask about their game, what they feel their strengths are, how they feel in the last 10 minutes of games; we’re looking for clues in how to build their programme. That means they’re then invested in their programmes because they know it’s specific to them.

“Things that were once only available in university labs are now available at the training centre. And we can put everything on iPhones or iPads, so we have all this instant data that comes from us looking under the bonnet.

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“We’ve also got a bigger staff, so we’re more equipped to individualise stuff. We can create one-on-one time for players.

“Players expect that. It’s rare now to have a player who hasn’t come through the academy system, so they’ve been exposed to this type of thing since they were with the under-13s.

“When I started 12 years ago, I was introducing stuff to guys in their 30s for the first time. That doesn’t happen anymore. It’s much more part of their daily lives as footballers.”