Players now start pre-season in better shape than they ended it 15 years ago. At Bournemouth one squad member even went on holiday with the fitness coach

The majority of Premier League clubs reported back for pre-season training on Monday, although for many of the players it will feel as if they have never been away. That is partly because the six weeks since the final league game of last season have passed in the blink of an eye but more to do with the fact that so few players have a proper break these days. Indeed, some are so determined to stay in shape that they take the fitness coach on holiday with them.

“Steve Cook wanted to really push on in the off season, so he asked if I’d go away with him,” says Ben Donachie, who works closely with Dan Hodges, Bournemouth’s head of sports science. “We went away for a week to do some training, between 17 and 24 June, and I had to pull the reins in a little bit because he always wanted to do more.”

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Cook, who played every minute of last season’s Premier League campaign, is not alone in that respect. Tyrone Mings regularly posted footage on social media of his gruelling work-outs during June and a number of other Bournemouth players were turning up at the stadium when they could have been putting their feet up. “We’ve had probably 50% of the squad in over the six weeks that they’ve had off,” says Hodges, who is taking his sixth pre-season at the club. “They will text me or Ben, saying they want to do a bit of work.”

That feels like a huge shift from 20 or so years ago, when anyone who was a professional footballer during that era will remember how there was a school of thought among some players that letting themselves go was fine because it was the club’s job to get them fit when they returned.

“That mentality has completely changed,” Hodges says. “Some of our guys at Bournemouth go hell for leather in the off season and I’m having to say: ‘Take a little bit of a break. Chill out a bit. Your body needs to recover and recuperate.’”

Hodges agrees that, on average, today’s elite footballer probably reports back after the summer break in as good shape, if not better, than the sort of condition most players were in when they finished pre-season 15 years ago. “I wouldn’t doubt that,” he says. “You’re almost kicking on every year. There’s not a dip at the end of the season, it’s almost a plateau, then you go again.”

There are plenty of reasons why the mindset of players has altered so much. Through the introduction of sports scientists such as Hodges and Donachie, together with investment in state-of-the-art equipment, staff and players at the top end of professional football are educated about fitness in so much more depth than before and also given the best possible environment in which to work.

The game has evolved, too. Hodges points to the statistics showing that the modern footballer is making far more high-intensity runs, meaning that players know they have to be in absolute peak condition to compete. Having reached those levels during the season, few want to give themselves a lot of work to do to get back there by letting things slide in the summer.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bournemouth’s Steve Cook took a fitness coach on holiday with him but still feels the strain on his return to training. Photograph: Robin Jones/Digital South

Clubs make that process easier by providing individual training programmes to follow throughout the off-season, although Bournemouth stop short of making their players take their GPS and heart-rate monitors away with them. “We try to stay in touch with them, checking that they’re OK and that they know what they’re doing,” Hodges says. “The players give you feedback on their work – you get pictures and videos. But there also has to be an element of trust there from me. If I gave them their monitors, would they really feel that they’re switching off?”

When it comes to how hard players have trained – or partied – during their six weeks off, the proof is in the pudding when they return. Hodges asked the players to do a six-minute yo-yo test in May – “It’s controlled by a bleep either side with a little bit of active recovery in between,” he explains – and plans to repeat that running exercise later this week, comparing the results, in particular looking at how heart rates have gone up or down. Donachie, meanwhile, took body composition readings at the end of the season, including weighing each player and carrying out a skin-fold test.

“There are eight locations on the body and using calipers, you pinch the skin and it gives you a reading of fat on that site, so we monitor that throughout the season and then we give them a target at the end of the season,” Donachie explains. “Typically we give them a 10% range to come back within. You have to expect them to have a little bit of time off and enjoy themselves. But then in the back of their minds they’ve still got that target that they have to hit. They’re always texting [in the off season], saying: ‘I’m worried about my body fat.’”

Bournemouth took those skin-fold measurements and many more on Saturday, when the players were put through their paces in a variety of ways on their first day back. “There was jump testing, power testing, Wattbike testing, questionnaires, then they moved on to bloods, salivas, ECG and movement screening with the physios,” Hodges says. “Once they did those stations, they moved outside and we did some maximal physical testing with them – that’s a time trial where they’re asked to run 1,600 metres in the quickest time they can.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dan Hodges, Bournemouth’s head of sports science, centre, says: ‘I present the results back to the players in front of everyone, so there is no hiding place.’ Photograph: Robin Jones/Digital South

Eddie Howe takes much more than a passing interest and the Bournemouth manager has been in regular contact with Hodges over the last few weeks, discussing every aspect of pre-season training. “He is so focused and determined,” Hodges says. “He wants to know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, not only that but also the players have to know why they’re doing it. He wants to make sure everything has improved from before and that we can individualise everything we possibly can.”

The latter means steering pre-season training away from a one-size-fits-all approach that assumes every player requires the same work, irrespective of his position on the pitch or his fitness levels and physical characteristics. Hodges uses the 1,600m time trial – the longest continuous run that the Bournemouth players will do – as a barometer for who needs what during the rest of pre-season.

While the results of Saturday’s testing at Bournemouth are not for public consumption, there is transparency in another sense. “I present the results back to the players in front of everyone, so there is no hiding place,” Hodges says. “If your body fat is up, you’re getting outed in front of the rest of the players. We also have an analysis room where the results will be posted for all to see and there is a leaderboard in the gym. We’re making everything competitive because we want the players to be as fit as they possibly can be going into the first game of the season.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Simon Francis leads his Bournemouth team-mates. The club use a 1,600m time trial – the longest continuous run the players will do – as a barometer for who needs what during the rest of pre-season. Photograph: Robin Jones/Digital South

“And that’s also how it works throughout the season – all the physical stats from training, how far they’ve run every day, will be listed and the manager will see it. The players always want to know their results anyway and how it compares to players in their position. In fact, if the data is not up within 15 minutes, they’re asking for it. They’re so inquisitive now.”

Yet no matter how fit Premier League players are these days and how much expert knowledge and help is at their disposal, one thing never changes and that is the sense of foreboding before that first pre-season training session, which ranges from butterflies in the stomach to absolute trepidation.

“That’s 100% right,” Hodges says, smiling. “And that’s another thing that drives them on in the off season – the time trial they do when they come back, no one likes to run that distance as quickly as they can, so they’ve got that fear factor that, if they have a break and don’t do anything, then they’re in trouble.”