Sam Ricketts speaks to Shrewsweb as pre-season gets underway
Today marked the first day of pre-season as fitness tests were taken for half of the squad whilst the other half of the squad will have their tests tomorrow before normal training resumes first thing on Monday morning.
Sam Ricketts spoke to Shrewsweb at the Sundorne training facility to update the press as a busy pre-season gets underway.
“All we’ve done really is split the players into two groups,” said Sam. “It’s just for testing. The physios will be testing how the bodies are moving, are they strong are they moving correctly even down to the player's hearts.
“We’ll do some power testing in the gym, and then some physical tests outside which will be mainly running.”
Although the players haven’t been back as a group to Sundorne, the players have still been training at the gym in their own time throughout the summer.
“Players now probably have a maximum of two weeks off where they don’t really do too much at all, but then they’re back on it making sure their fitness is ticking over, not obviously as much as in the season but to make sure they keep their bodies moving.
“Pre-season is really where I expect to see the players fitness increase. I don’t expect to see the players coming in now match fit because then they haven’t given their players a rest over the summer.
“This is just a gage to make sure we’re fit and ready to go, to be able to push them and see what stage we’re at.
“As pre-season goes on the level of fitness improves and tactical awareness improves.”
Sam is really looking forward to getting a full pre-season with the squad.
“It’s a really good time of year, you get six weeks worth of training, the big emphasis at this time of year is fitness but also that tactical work. That will just continue throughout the first couple of months of the season and beyond.
“It takes a little while for tactical work to really sink in, any system takes a while.”