On the first day back at training in 2016, the BVB first-team players saw little of the foul weather in Dortmund - constant rain at 11 degrees. The first sessions took place inside.

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Athletics and power were on the training schedule, as well as the compulsory lactate test. Youngsters Felix Passlack and Christian Pulisic were involved too. Those first-team players - including Nuri Sahin (pictured) - who missed the sports medical examination in the summer, caught up on it at the Ruhr University in Bochum. Among other things, it included an eye test as well as a "spiroergometry".

This specialist concept refers to an analysis of respiratory gases which has been widespread in endurance sports for years now and is no longer entirely new in football either. Among other things, it determines individual heart rates within training and the aerobic-anaerobic threshold. Here the point is determined at which the load results in the body experiencing an oxygen deficit. Based on this knowledge, the training load can therefore be individually controlled and thus optimised for the individual players. (br)