Several members of the Pools squad were back at the Club's training base in Peterlee on Monday morning to complete some mandatory summer fitness work overseen by Jon Whitney.
Just as in previous years, the lads all have a programme to follow during the off-season but this summer that is being complemented by blocks of training in the build-up to their return to pre-season at the end of June.
The first of those sessions are taking place on Monday and Tuesday, with another two dates in a couple of weeks and all contracted players have been told they must attend at least once.
“It’s about keeping tabs on them a little bit but also just to give them a taster of what is going to be involved during pre-season,” explained Whitney.
“After about two to three weeks of inactivity – even though the lads will still do some stuff – you see a drop-off where you decondition or detrain.
“We’ve given them all close-season programmes which get progressively more intense as time goes on, with upper and lower body exercises.
“Some of the lads will do too much and some of them may not do enough but it’s about trying to get that balance right.
“We know we have some players – the likes of Adam Bale – who we might have to put the reins on a little bit because there’s a chance he could over-train so it works both ways.
“These blocks will give us an idea of their fitness levels and also get them doing some of the movements and the biomechanics they’re going to need in pre-season and moving in to the season itself.”
Monday’s session saw boss Craig Hignett also join in, alongside Adam Bale, Ryan Catterick, Aaron Cunningham, Ryan Donaldson, Gavan Holohan, Luke James, Liam Noble and Kenton Richardson.