Josh Hodgson might look like he's been bench pressing razorbacks all summer but the English hooker swears it's just the angles.
No recruit in the NRL is under more pressure than Hodgson, who joins Parramatta this season from the Raiders.
That's part of the deal when you join a team in Parramatta's position. The Eels lost last year's grand final, so anything less than that is a step backwards but there's only one step forward a team can take when they finish as runners up.
With Hodgson coming in for Reed Mahoney, he's the biggest change at the club so if things go awry he will, rightly or wrongly, come in for some treatment.
Add in his rehabilitation from another knee reconstruction and it'd be fair to say the odds are stacked against the veteran English rake.
Which brings us back to the angles which Hodgson believes are so forgiving. So far in his career his calling card has been his skill and poise rather than an overwhelming physicality, but he's been going the extra mile for a while now in an effort to get ready for Round 1.
Everybody says that at this time of year, but one look at Hodgson and you'll believe it. Right now, he's got muscles in places most people don't even have places.
"That's just good camera angles, mate. It's all about the angles, I'm telling you, you see me walking in the streets and I'm not looking like that," Hodgson said.
"This is probably the best I've felt in a really long time, if I'm being honest. I've had a full 12 months to get myself right, which is probably what I needed.
"Coming off the back of the previous two ACL's I did, I was always trying to race back and be right for games and my fitness levels probably weren't where they needed to be now that I look back.
"Not that I was underdone, just compared to how I feel now I feel very different.
"It's all down to hard work as well, I've come into a system where they live and breathe hard work, which is really good."
As he prepares for his Parramatta debut in their trial against Penrith on Saturday, almost 11 months to the day since his last game for his old club, Hodgson is ready to start again all over again.
It's a different situation, no question. Hodgson was a transformative recruit when he arrived at Canberra in 2015. The Raiders grew and changed around him and enjoyed their most successful period in almost three decades.
By the time he left town, Hodgson was the club's most impactful signing since Mal Meninga. He'd never say that, or even think it, and heaps praise on former coach Ricky Stuart and his ex-teammates when he's asked about it, but it's true.
At Parramatta, the machine wasn't only already built, it was in high gear. They only have one more gear to find, in fact, and that's what Hodgson is aiming to do.
His main task is twofold – marshalling Parramatta's enormous forward pack and striking the right balance with halves Mitch Moses and Dylan Brown.
The former should be simple, because creating isolation match-ups for his forwards was long one of Hodgson's specialities in his Canberra days where he forged a particularly strong link close to the line with Raiders prop Josh Papalii.
"That exact same combination I had with Papa is what I'm trying to build here," Hodgson said.
"You look at the size of Junior, Reg, Ryan Matterson, (Ofahiki) Ogden, all these blokes are massive, massive men and if you're trying to tackle them one-on-one two metres from the line … that's a hard thing to do.
"Hopefully I can add a fair bit to the team in that middle third of the field, we've got some middles that are really dangerous, especially when you get them close to the line, so I want to get involved in tha but I'm also a realist.
"You don't want to run before you can walk, there's some really talented players outside me so I want to get them the ball when they need it and the rest of the good stuff will come off the back of that."
Finding that balance with his halves shapes as Hodgson's greatest challenge at his new club.
Where Mahoney was a tackling machine that thrived on intensity who learned the art of dummy half play over time, Hodgson is the other way round – skill and pose have always been his calling card.
As a more cerebral and controlling player that Mahoney, Hodgson will need to strike a perfect balance with Moses, who likewise does his best work when he's getting plenty of touches.
New assistant coach Trent Barrett has been crucial in finding that balance between the playmakers.
Fans might scoff at that given Barrett's struggles as head coach of Canterbury last year but it's worth remembering what landed him that job in the first place – namely, his work with Penrith playmakers Nathan Cleary, Jarome Luai and Api Koroisau during their breakout 2020 season.
"I'm not sure if it's a whole heap different to last year because I wasn't here but the way he runs us and the way he likes to run the spine makes it really simple for a nine in terms of who wants the ball and when they need it," said Hodgson.
"There'll be teething issues, at the start of the year nobody will be hitting their straps just yet but that's not how you want it to be, there's lumps and bumps through the year and you have to work through them.
"The good teams never get too rattled, they stick together and come out the other side and there's plenty of resilience in this team.
"You saw that when they beat the Cowboys (in the preliminary final) last year, that's the kind of thing we want to keep building."
Given his injury history, resilience is something Hodgson understands. It's why he's even here in the first place.
Few would have blamed Hodgson for taking the easy way out after suffering yet another knee problem just 20 minutes into Canberra's 2022 season.
But that was never going to be the end of him. The pride of East Hull wants to play well into his late 30's and rejuvenating his career at Parramatta might just get him there.
"It's a really exciting team to come into, I'm just trying not to get too excited too early," Hodgson said.
"I still love my footy as much as I did when I was a kid, I still love coming to training everyday, still love being with the boys, still love throwing the ball around.
"I don't think that will change any time soon."
