Leeds United report back for pre-season training on Monday morning with those who have not been involved in some level of international football the past few weeks, expected to report for the start of training. When we say training, it's become unusual these days for players to hit the training field and kick a ball in the opening couple of days of training.
Before reporting back to the training pitch to prepare for the new campaign, Leeds' players will go through a process commonly referred to as ‘pre-season testing’. But what’s involved and just what exactly goes on in the opening couple of days of pre-season?
The testing is a combination of performance-based tests and medical checks. The Whites' players will also go into a more clinical environment for the medical side of things – clubs often book out university facilities for this were there is more specific equipment to test.
That will involve things like bone and ligament scans, body fat measurement, heart screenings, and the good old-fashioned tape measure to take down a player’s physiometrics (a fancy word for ‘body measurements’). It is essentially an all-round annual medical check-up with an extra athletic slant to it.
Read more: Leeds United takeover delay explained as blame put at door of 49ers or Radrizzani
On the performance side, the players will go through a series of exercises that measure speed, agility, balance, power, aerobic performance, and general all-round athletic fitness. This involves a lot of tape measures, stop watches, and more specialist equipment; for instance, a player’s vertical leap will help inform how much power they can generate from a standing start.
Players will have been given regimens to follow even over their summer breaks, and that’s not just because Leeds don’t want them turning up in as good a shape as possible (though of course they do): perhaps counter-intuitively, it also helps lessen the risk of injury.
The club will however compare the players’ performance to their previous numbers – again, not just to gauge athletic performance, but as a means of raising any subtle injury issues the player themselves may not even have noticed.
Even if a player gets a clean bill of health, taking measurements now can also provide useful data to use as a comparison if new injuries come up; for instance, the players will likely run through a concussion screening not just to make sure they’re OK to return to training, but to provide a baseline for future assessments if head injuries occur over the course of the season. Or, if a player suffers a knee injury, the club will have data for what their level was in pre-season beforehand so they know what to aim for in rehab.
Beyond the medical element, the numbers the players establish on the first day of pre-season will be used as a benchmark for the rest of the summer. That doesn’t just allow the club to monitor how each player has got on relative to one another – though of course that’s useful information to have in itself – but will also help the coaches to tailor individual training plans for each player.
If that largely seems like common sense, it is. What is challenging for one player in a certain exercise may be a tad too easy for another, after all, though that varies by exercise: you wouldn’t want to push the centre-back to sprint as fast as the winger.
Ultimately, what pre-season testing does is help find the exact balance between establishing reasonable expectations and helping each player to reach their best possible standard.
