Mansfield Town’s first team squad have returned to pre-season training as manager David Flitcroft’s detailed close-season planning was put into practice for the first time.
The Stags’ squad spent the morning at Fitness Flex gymnasium next to One Call Stadium, where they were medically screened and tested for flexibility, balance and maximum heart rate, amongst other examinations.
Following lunch, the players took to the grass for the first time on the training pitch next to One Call Stadium.
Speaking to www.mansfieldtown.net at the start of the day, the manager explained what was in store for the players: “It’s all about monitoring, making sure that the players have come back in the right body fats as well as body conditioning.
“We’ve had a programme through the off-season where they’ve been coming in to work with the fitness coaches to ensure they stay in front of themselves.
“Last season, there weren’t a lot of players who did a 46 game season.
"There were a lot of players who did 20-24 games so we felt that an off season programme would benefit us.”
The manager revealed a desire for the club to monitor the players’ biomechanics through sports science ahead of and during the new campaign.
“We call [all of] this a base level fitness and we’ll be making sure from a CV (cardiovascular) they are right on point."
“I asked the club to invest in new testing equipment,” said the manager.
“I’m ‘big’ on making sure the training programme is working, lower limb work is right and upper body conditioning is good and you can only do that by re-testing.
“We’ve invested in that and that’s an area now that we’ll be able to check on and work to the effect that we want.
“It’s about making sure that we’re prepped physically in terms of conditioning.
“We have a game in a couple weeks time and we’ll be working towards that Dundee game now [in Portugal on Saturday 07 July] .
“We call [all of] this a base level fitness and we’ll be making sure from a CV (cardiovascular perspective) they are right on point.
“We’ll collect the data and go one better the next day to ensure we’re building out, so that when we get to Portugal they’re up to the levels to make sure we can do anything game related.”
The Stags’ boss will speak again to www.mansfieldtown.net and iFollow Stags in a scheduled news conference at One Call Stadium tomorrow morning.
