The Peterborough United squad are back in pre-season training.

The Peterborough United first team squad have returned to pre-season training with the players' put through their paces at the Nene Park Academy by manager Darren Ferguson and his coaching staff.

After a light gym session in the morning, the players were at the training ground for the heart rate max test followed by a four minute run. Nine of the squad then completed a technical training session with Gavin Strachan and Gary Breen heavily involved.

'I have been really pleased with the lads,' Ferguson said. 'They have all come back in good shape and have done everything we asked of them. They were given a schedule to follow during the summer and everyone has stuck to that. We are still waiting on one or two results from the tests, but I am happy.

'There were nine of the lads who didn't play as much as the rest of the squad plus Jack Payne, who wanted to join in, who then completed the technical session and that was tough, but the standard was high.

'The lads are now back in on Tuesday and then we will step things up as pre-season progresses. We have a game at Barnet ahead of the trip to Portugal and like normal, it will be 45 minutes each for the first friendly,' Ferguson said.

Physiotherapist Chris Burton said: 'We did some full movement jumps in the gym, the leg press and to be fair, they have all come back in good shape. We did the heart rate max run in the afternoon, so when the conditioning is done we can judge their heart rate zones accordingly.

'The sub maximal run was over four minutes and it is designed to achieve required distance in a set period of time. We know what distance we were looking for and as the weeks go by, we believe the distance will improve and they will be getting fitter and fitter, which is obviously the aim.

'We worked on the pre-season schedule at the end of last season. There is a lot to take into consideration. The lads have come back in good shape and the first day was very impressive. We are looking forward to the next six weeks,' Burton said.

Posh will announce the squad numbers for the new campaign in due course.