St Mirren Men's first-team players are being put through their paces at a training camp in Spain.
The Buddies are based at the Pinatar Arena outside Murcia with preparations underway for season 2024/25.
With temperatures in the region hitting the high 20s all week, St Mirren Lead Sport Scientist Gary McColl talked through how the coaching staff structure their sessions to manage the players in tough conditions.
"At this time of year it is obviously a lot warmer so when we want to get double pitch sessions in for the players we have to consider when we train during the day so we miss the peak heat," Gary told stmirren.com.
"That's meant we are training a bit earlier in the mornings and getting the players back to the hotel to get them fed and let them rest in the afternoon before going out early evening again when it's a little bit cooler.
"There may be times later in the week where we may have to adapt as we go whether that's because it's too hot at a certain time of day to train or through the accumulation of work the players have built up through the week.
A lot of the boys aren't used to training in this sort of heat and trying to push them every single day probably isn't the best way forward."
Saints will face Dunfermline a week on Saturday in our first pre-season friendly with competitive football getting underway in a little under a month's time with a trip to either Iceland or Albania in the UEFA Conference League.
The players returned to pre-season training on Monday after a month's break before flying out to Spain on Wednesday to get themselves prepared for the season ahead.
"The first few days of pre-season involves physical profiling of players such as fitness levels, body composition, strength tests in the gym, we are trying to collate all that information so we can put plans in place for the group as a whole but also individually as well.
Our aim is always to improve the strength and fitness of the players and make sure they are robust as possible.
"We're really pleased with how the players have come back.
We have a really hard-working group that has looked after itself over the summer and they've come back in great condition.
"We've got a lot of work in during the first couple of days here and so far so good. The players that were here in January are familiar with the surroundings. We're at a good hotel and there are good facilities both on and off the pitch so everyone is pretty happy."
"Going back towards the end of last season we started putting our plans in place for pre-season. The manager, myself and the coaching staff put in place a plan for what we want to achieve.
"This season has been a little bit different from the last couple of years whereby the players had a little bit longer off-season and the pre-season we've got we have a little bit more time to play with so we don't have to rush things in getting the boys fit.
"While we're over here in Spain it's all about getting our work in on the pitch and in the gym."
