After two intensive weeks under the guidance of world-renowned reconditioning specialist Bill Knowles, Joel Amartey, Tom Papley, Will Edwards, and Logan McDonald have taken another step forward in reshaping how they move, recover, and perform.

Knowles’ methods go beyond drills and strength session, instead, they are about physical education, teaching athletes to understand movement from the ground up.

“We’re trying to physically educate them to be more efficient in their actions,” Knowles explained.

“These movement patterns, these movements pattern themselves are really similar in both the water, in the gym, on the gymnastics floor, on the trampoline, and they are patterned on the pitch when they go do it.” 

Drawing on decades of experience from the track and field and strength and conditioning worlds, Knowles’ focus is on creating athletes who can “get in and out of positions with precision, style and grace".

“You have to be able to get into lots of positions and control them regularly,” he said.

“That’s what builds resilience - being strong, stable, and repeatable under pressure.”

For the players, the detail and depth over the two weeks spent with Knowles has been eye-opening.

“It’s a lot of stuff you’ve seen before, but the level of intricacy Bill knows -  it’s off the charts," said Amartey.

"He's got like 6 hours of program to go through, but I have never seen him look at a book or look at some dot points or anything he just knows it off the top of his head.

"There's four of us doing it at once and he can just look at you for three seconds and know what you need to correct.” 

Amartey noted how the training pushed their mental awareness just as much as their bodies.

“You think you’re balancing on one leg, but then you realise there’s a dozen little muscles in your foot you’ve never really thought about, Bill hones in on those," Amartey said.

"The mental awareness to concentrate on those smaller things burns you out over four, five hours.” 

For Edwards, Knowles’ focus on the fundamentals offered a new way of thinking about movement.

“He starts from the very beginning - where your feet, your toes are meant to be. It’s about posture, about how that builds better force into the ground and through your body,” Edwards said.

"The whole point of Bill is to make you a better player, and make sure you're on the field for longer periods of time and keep you fit and healthy.” 

Knowles’ philosophy is simple; he enforces that the quality of the movement translates into performance longevity.

“I’m here to change your posture because it stresses your tissue in a different capacity,” Knowles said.

“That posture means better force, better strength quality, and greater resilience heading into the season.” 

For Amartey, who has battled injury this season, he believes that the program has offered something deeper.

“I’ve always been a powerful athlete, but you need to know how to handle those forces - how to absorb and then reproduce them. Through the gymnastics and the different drills, your legs learn how to adapt again.”

Catch up on Episode One below.