Allan Saint-Maximin has revealed he is ready for the 'biggest challenge' of his life as the Frenchman prepares to return for pre-season training with Newcastle United.
The majority of the players are due back at the training ground for testing this week as they reassemble at Benton for the first time since May.
The squad were given individual programmes to follow during the off season and they all know what is coming ahead of the start of the new campaign.
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Steve Bruce likes to work his players hard during pre-season, challenging them to run 1,500 metres as fast as they can in those first days back, for example, and a gruelling camp awaits at Queen Ethelburga's Collegiate in York next week.
However, the squad have already been preparing for those double sessions and Jacob Murphy, Paul Dummett, the Longstaff brothers, Kell Watts and Mark Gillespie even started work at the club's gym two weeks early.
Saint-Maximin has since posted a series of intense workout videos on his Instagram page, which capture the gifted forward running on a treadmill and doing step box exercises.
'Ready for the biggest challenge of my life' was how Saint-Maximin's captioned one of his videos while another clip was simply titled 'it's time to do it'.
Saint-Maximin will be keen to get another full pre-season under his belt as the explosive 24-year-old looks to put his previous niggles behind him.
Saint-Maximin has started 45 games in two seasons at Newcastle and the Magpies' talisman will be desperate to stay fit over the course of the coming campaign.
