THERE was no hiding place for Oxford United’s players as they reported back for pre-season fitness tests yesterday.

The U’s squad are all being put through their paces in the life science laboratories of Oxford Brookes University.

Half of Chris Wilder’s side underwent tests yesterday, with the rest being monitored today.

And goalkeeper Ryan Clarke, the first player to face the high-tech treadmill which enables every aspect of his fitness data to be analysed by experts, admitted they all know the importance of coming back to training in decent shape.

“I had sleepless nights to be honest,” he joked.

“But seriously, I was obviously preparing for it and have had a couple of runs. You don’t want to come back too shabby.

“You can’t get away from pre-season. We all know we have to put the hard work in.”

Led by the club’s strength and conditioning coach, Andrew Dubowski, United’s squad will all feel the force of the tests – which in simple terms makes them run until they drop.

Just to be sure of no serious accidents, a crash mat is placed behind the treadmill to catch the players if they do drop!

He explained: “It was a maximal aerobic cardiovascular test, of which the average length is 15-20 minutes.

“Because it’s maximal, the players need to keep running until they can go no further.

“The body produces lactate, which is the substance that stops you exercising.

“From the results of that, we can then manipulate each individual in training to increase what they are capable of doing.”

The link-up with Brookes allows United’s coaching staff to tailor the needs of each individual player.

Dubowski said: “These tests give us so much information, and it’s great to have this science at our disposal.

“It tells us what type of fuels the players are burning when they are putting in maximum effort, fat or carbohyrdates.

“As far as I know, it’s the first time they’ve been put through this, and it really is cutting edge technology.

“It’s a team effort. Most of the coaching staff are in today, and I’m leading the conditioning as I have the knowledge to analyse that.

“The players are all finely-honed athletes. This is just all about fine-tuning my pre-season training plan.”

United’s squad report back for official pre-season training next week.