The off-season for football players has evolved. Long breaks of inactivity with maybe a few runs prior to a gruelling pre-season has morphed into a more structured, focused mindset and programme. Heart of Midlothian head coach Steven Naismith noted being a footballer is now more than a job or a career, it's a lifestyle.
His squad will return to pre-season on Wednesday and many will have done so by working with a coach or personal trainer to ensure they are in ideal shape to tackle the next five or so weeks ahead of the 2024/25 campaign.
Three of the Hearts team, Barrie McKay, Aidan Denholm and Craig Halkett, have done so with Kevin Kelly who runs Platinum Player, an elite-level private training programme in the west of Scotland. He has worked with players for over a decade and counts the likes of Johnny Russell, Moussa Dembele, Odsonne Edouard, Olivier Ntcham, John Souttar, Scott Allan and Scott Fraser as current or former clients.
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At this time of year, the work Kelly has been doing with the Hearts trio is preparing them to return to action without a shock to the system. Essentially reintroducing the movements they will do daily as a footballer during the campaign. Twisting and turning, dealing with and manipulating a football. Those short and sharp bursts, accelerating, stopping quickly and changing direction, with and without the ball, that you don't get when simply doing runs.
Anyone who has ever taken a break of a few weeks from playing 11s or 5s, or the gym, will understand the discomfort the day after the first game or session back. The work players have been undertaking in the last few weeks is designed to minimise or even eradicate those feelings when they return.
"One of the big things for me is the boys have got to enjoy it," Kelly told Hearts Standard. "If you get the boys to buy into something and enjoy it they are more likely to work harder at it and benefit from it as a result of that.
"My outlook this time of year is that when you are going back for pre-season you are going to do pre-season. It doesn’t matter how fit you go back in you are not going to get a pass, ‘Oh you came back really fit so you are not going to do the running’. They are all going to go back in and they are all going to do the pre-season clubs set out for them.
"I’ll bring them in and do a lot of short, sharp endurance work. I’ll do a lot of stuff with the ball. It might be a lot of repetition stuff, short, sharp explosive work on the pitch, getting them twisting, getting them turning, getting them working for maybe say a minute, a minute 30 on specific drills so that when the balls come out and they go into the short sharp stuff and things that get the heart rate spiked up and the recovery rate has got to be good, they’ve got the endurance and power and speed and strength in their legs to do what they are being asked to do.
"They can all run, they are all fit boys to certain levels. The 1km tests, the pitch runs, the box-to-box runs, they can all do that. But what maybe sets you up, possibly ahead of others, once that is all done and once the balls come out, you can now go into train the way you want to train because your legs and your endurance in your legs are ready to work with a ball the way you should be in season."
How often the players train is dependent on their own schedule and the programme that's been agreed. Kelly gave an example of McKay, who he has worked with since the playmaker's time with Swansea City, coming in four days a week, two of which will be a double session that will include gym work with a rest day after each double session.
The one-to-one sessions or small-group sessions provide a bit of accountability for the individuals.
"When guys are given programmes to work on, it is easy to say, ‘Here is a two-week running programme’ but it is hard to provide sessions for the boys, the stuff I would do," he said.
"I can put drills together and I can get them working. I can put a wee bit of pressure on them to perform. It is hard to say to Aidan or Barrie, go down the pitch and perform these drills, that’s a hard thing to do as an individual on your own. Whether it be from a motivational point of view, understanding the drill, the rest you should be getting, that kind of stuff.
"It is hard for clubs to provide that. That’s where I benefit. That’s what I do with the boys and that’s what they enjoy. When pre-season starts they don't want to be looking lethargic or leggy when the balls come out. They don’t want to be thinking, ‘Oh god, we’ve not kicked a ball in five weeks and are a bit rusty'. They want to know they are ready for that when it comes out."
To provide context of how important players find working with someone like Kelly to prepare for the season, we can go back to when Barrie McKay signed for Hearts in September 2021. His signing came after the campaign had started and he hadn't had a pre-season with the team. But he had spent that time with Kelly. It was the fittest he felt going into a season and he produced a hugely impressive campaign.
That work can provide players with confidence just from the knowledge that they have done it. It can act as part of a mental checklist, a mindset boost. For McKay and Halkett that could be even more important this summer after their frustration with injuries last campaign. Twelve months ago neither had a normal pre-season. This time around, they have put the work in that they usually do. That they want to do.
For Denholm, he wanted to get quicker and "hit the ground running". It was McKay who recommended Kelly to the young midfielder. And it was McKay who Denholm described as the biggest influence in the first-team.
"He’s kind of taken Aidan under his wing, helping Aidan who is a cracking young boy, and learn what maybe Barrie wishes he had done at Aidan’s age," Kelly said. "A lot of the stuff Barrie is doing now he wasn’t doing then [when coming through at Rangers] because he didn’t have someone telling him this is what you should be, or working specifics in the gym to say you should be training from a footballer’s point of view, from a performance point of view. Your speed, power and agility, all that sort of thing. Barrie’s been that shoulder for Aidan to lean on.
"Barrie used to hate the gym when he was younger, Barrie now loves the gym, Barrie now loves training, he can’t get enough of it. Young Barrie didn’t think like that. He has been telling Aidan about the things he should be doing because these are the things 'I didn’t do but wish I had and I love the fact I’m doing it now'. Aidan’s only going to benefit from it."
That off-season work is becoming increasingly prevalent around football and in Scotland. It is a result of that change Naismith mentioned around lifestyle. Football is a hugely competitive industry, players search for that extra one per cent wherever they can find it. There will be the view they can't be left behind.
"In the club environment, they are all teammates but they are all battling against each other for a jersey," Kelly agreed. "It’s not in a disrespectful way but at the end of the day, that is what it is. You are part of a team and you all want to win and lose as a team.
"Every day you go in there you are getting judged on whether it is you or it is him that is going to play on Saturday. The pressure nowadays for boys around this time of year, there is no escaping it, you can’t go back unfit, you can’t go overweight, you can’t go back [with the mindset] I’ve had my holidays not let’s get fit.
"You go onto social media now and the player will see their peers doing stuff. They see their teammates doing stuff, they see boys in the Premier League in England doing stuff. They know if he is doing that and winning Champions Leagues, why the hell am I not doing it?"
For Hearts, Naismith and the players it can only be of benefit if they are ready to hit the ground running when they are back to begin another long campaign.
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