So as Crystal Palace’s players began to make their respective returns to training on Friday with pre-season screening day, Palace’s Head of Physiotherapy, James Haycock, knew well the significance of the work being done.
Entering his 23rd season in professional sport, Haycock has seen for himself the gradual sharpening of players’ pre-season programmes.
Speaking to Palace TV, he explained: “The idea with testing is we get the lads back after their summer holidays – and all their time enjoying themselves – and make sure that they’re in good condition physically to start with our training programmes.
“It’s to make sure that they don’t pick up anything injury-wise in the early stages, or at least to try and do our best to prevent that.
“It also gives us a benchmark or baseline for where they are in terms of their range of motion in their hips, their flexibility and their strength testing, so that we can identify any deficiencies they may have and work on those in the pre-season period.
“We finished later as a result of the [2022] World Cup so the lads have only had four weeks, or just over, off, so most of them have maintained a decent level of fitness over the off-season anyway, which typically now is how players are.
“The days of them turning up in bad shape or having overdone it for an eight-week period are largely gone, particularly at the elite level. It’s certainly a short break so we’re expecting the lads to come back in a reasonable condition.”