HUDDERSFIELD Giants are great believers that variety is the spice of life.
With pre-season training now into a third week, coach Jon Sharp's Super League squad have already tried out a whole host of activities in a bid to gain an extra edge in skill, strength and fitness.
Besides embarking on wrestling, karate and boxing sessions for a second succesive year, the Giants have now added squash and basketball to their growing list of pre-season training pursuits.
Their latest alternative exercise was a trip to the Huddersfield Squash Club at Edgerton on the invitation of director of squash Malcolm Pickup, the Galpharm Stadium health and safety manager.
And Giants football manager Stuart Sheard believes it proved a 100% success.
"Pre-season training can become a bit of a bind if you're not careful," said Sheard.
"The key is to make the work at this time of the year hard but enjoyable.
"That can be achieved by using as many different training techniques as possible.
"And squash fits that bill perfectly, particularly at the Edgerton club.
"It's a great sport for agility, fitness and movement, which are obviously key elements in rugby league as well.
"But the advantage of being up at Edgerton is that the club also has outdoor courts, so while half the boys were inside playing squash the other half were outside working on their rugby league skills.
"All the boys thoroughly enjoyed themselves up there and it's something I think we'll be repeating again.
"That's also the case with the basketball work.
"Ball skill is vital to success in that particular sport and rugby league is no different. There are bound to be a few basketball techniques that can help further develop rugby league skills."
The fitness element work of the training is being undertaken by the Giants' new Head of Athletic Performance Geoff Evans, pictured left.
The Australian has been working the squad incredibly hard, but Sheard believes the players are loving every minute of it.
"They are coming back from every training session aching from head to toe, but always with big smiles on their faces," added Sheard.
"And that again has a lot to do with the variety of work being under taken by Geoff during each fitness training session.
"He's spending a lot of time with the boys working on the hills.
"That might sound monotous work, but so far he's had them running up hills around Roundhay Park in Leeds, Thornes Park in Wakefield and Shibden Park in Halifax.
"On top of that the boys have been running up and down the steps inside the stands of the Galpharm. It's hard work, but at least they always have something different to look at!"
