Munster will begin their PRO14 campaign against Benetton Treviso on September 1 in Thomond Park, and their preparations are in full swing.
The players are in the middle of an intense pre-season diet and training regime to ensure they will be in peak physical condition come the beginning of their 2017/2018 season.
Munster enjoyed an impressive European run all the way to the semi-final last season, in which they were beaten by eventual champions Saracens, and they're putting in all the ground work to make more progress this season.
The new PRO14 structure ensures the men of Munster will have to travel to South Africa for games against new sides the Southern Kings, and the Toyota Cheetahs in March and April respectively, so they will need to be at the top of their health.
A video was released on their Youtube channel on Tuesday morning detailing the gym work and diet plans being followed by the squad.
We were treated to shots of Simon Zebo performing an incline bench press with 36kg dumbbells, while other players were performing impressive resistance squats and one handed shoulder presses.
While Zebo was performing the bench press with 36kg weights, some of the other players were using the lighter 34's.
Big up Simon.
The squad's in-house performance nutritionist provided a valuable insight on the measures being taken by the lads to retain their weight, and to gain even more.
Their calorie intake levels are truly phenomenal.
"Player energy intake really does vary. What they should be doing is matching it to what they're doing. Calorie-wise, what you're looking at is 3 and a half thousand for a light player on a light day, but then upwards to 4 and a half to 5 thousand calories on a day that's heavy in terms of training load," said Tester.
"It can be a struggle to maintain that mass, but the lads have done a great job in making sure that their weights are up and that it's holding up, and hopefully we'll be seeing that stay throughout the season as well."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig2V07JfaiE&t=16s
In fairness, all sportspeople are longing for the type of service that the Munster lads are getting when it comes to healthy and tasty feeds being ready-made for them after every training session.
The beef-stir fry with rice achieves the blend well, while you can never go wrong with the traditional bacon and cabbage dish, and apparently it goes down a treat with the lads.
Homana, homana, homana.
