Reading Yaya's blog on the OS, he lets us know they have not one, but two sessions EACH day!!! One hour each makes for two whole gruesome hours of work a day.

And after having seen how Tevez and Kompany do warm-up exercises for a few minutes, I seriously wonder what on earth is they do which makes them all describe pre-season as hell on earth.

Anyone know if this is the typical day-to-day design during pre-season, with two pretty lame hours of work (or fun rather) a day?

They should all come down to the boxing gym and see how a fighter prepares for 6-8 weeks before a fight.

I thought that was the warm up? :/

How can you compare a boxers fitness to a footballers?

Might have been a few years ago, but now most players continue to keep themselves fit throughout the summer....

Its only hard work if they turn up over weight. No point running players into the ground when most have only had a two weeks off from training.

Well for a few years now I have heard how footballers describe the pre-season as horrific, really hard work etc.
I know of hard prep-work from my boxing days and two compare them two makes the football pre-season looks like a boxer's day off. Of course they do different routines, but the effort ought to be similar.

Maybe they do take it easy, very very VERY easy the first couple of days. It'll be interesting to read Yaya's daily blog.

For the last two seasons we've been very strong physically in the last month of the season. And we had the best record in the PL for avoiding injuries. So we must be doing something right.

They ought to try painting the front of my fucking house, five hours its taken me, up and down ladders now I am shattered. :-)

You mean you didn't take the pot of paint with you up the ladder?!

Just watched the OS and agree that it doesn't look that taxing.

However, I know from my own training that it's often the core strength and muscle work that hurts the most even though you are moving the least.

Part of strength training at this stage will involve really testing the muscles and in some cases, tearing fibres in order for them to repair. Thats why they will only do 1 hour at a time with rest and recuperation in between.

As another poster has said, we have a tremendous record in respect of injuries and all of our players always look physically fit,except maybe Tevez ;-)

You don't want to kill the players straight away; you want to build them up slowly.