One of the developments that has taken place at the club this season was the addition last summer of a Performance Nutrionist, James Collins (click here for story).

James is based in London with the English Institute of Sport working with athletes from Team Great Britain but spends at least a day a week at the training ground and keeps in further regular contact with all our players.

Performance Nutrition has become a key factor in sport in recent years, and during the season so far the first team have certainly benefited from James's knowledge and experience in terms of the gains which can be made.

And that work is now being expanded to the extent that James is operating at three levels within the club - the senior professionals, the Development squad and the Academy.

The first team are all seen individually and have their training diets for their specific needs, such as manipulating muscle & fat mass, and there are also team strategies in place for aspects like boosting immunity and muscle protection.

The Development squad are now following a similar format.

After an initial education session James and Exercise Physiologist John Iga looked at the players' programmes and decided individual consultations would have the greatest performance impact.

And from those consultations, aside from the technical information, it became clear that one area which needed work on was a practical skill in terms of food preparation in the kitchen, food hygiene and indeed shopping!

That was echoed by Steve Weaver (Development coach) in terms of his experience of having Development players who go out on loan.

So the issue was whether the players can be 'up-skilled' so that when they do go out on loan they are able to fend for themselves and while managing their training programmes they also manage their training diets as well.

As part of this education, James and the Development squad also had a really positive session at the training ground with our chef, Eric Clarke.

First they talked through some theory on food hygiene and then the Development players were shown by Eric how they could cook various dishes quickly and practically that can prove beneficial in the recovery phase of training.

They had some active demonstrations and had a go at preparing food themselves as well as discussing nutrient content and how it's going to affect them.

Eric did a fantastic job and the lads responded really well to it, as shown by the picture of Daniel Jones, who will now be able to put his skills to use on loan at Bristol Rovers.

The Academy is also now running to a similar philosophy in terms of trying to up-skill the youngsters with John periodising their training and working with them.

With the Academy it starts with workshops because so much of the issue with younger athletes is them building up an understanding of how Performance Nutrition can be of benefit.

James led a session with the under 18s about how their body works and then a second session about developing strategies for post-training, pre-match, or when they're on the road.

As a staff we want to give them the tools that they need, but it's also about getting them to ask questions and lead it if they can rather then just telling them what they should be doing.

With lads of this age it's best to get them to take ownership of the issues and have that questioning mentality which will then stay with them rather than just being given information.

It's a long term process, particularly when a player is only just starting out in the Academy, but the sooner they can get into good habits the better, hence why a summary of nutritional requirements and expectations are given out to their parents or landlords and landladies.

James may only be on site one day a week, but it's not a case of him passing on the advice and guidance and then disappearing.

He is instead putting a structure in place where from first team down the players are up-skilled so they can make their own decision on nutrition and the younger players can take this advice through their career which will be to their benefit.

All this is done amid regular dialogue with the club's backroom staff, from first team downwards, and not just in isolation.

It's all about trying to get these foundations in place, because there are so many elements in Performance Nutrition which can have an impact on training or a matchday, and the earlier a player takes this on board the more it just becomes a case of fine-tuning later on