As the Gills players returned to Priestfield for their first summer fitness session we caught up with Mark Stimson to get the lowdown on his pre-season preparations.

Stimson explains "Today's training session, like most over the next 3 or 4 weeks, is about the players condition.  It wasn't too demanding as you have to start off very lightly, they've all had 4 or 5 weeks break and if they were to come back in for an intensive session today we'd just get injuries."

"Its very important to ease the body into some sort of condition and that is where Danny Ellis our fitness man really comes in to play.  Over the last 3 or 4 weeks I've been spending a lot of time with Dan talking about the training programme."

"He's been working with some of the players individually, putting them through certain exercises that will benefit them and we'll be doing the same with the rest of the squad over the next couple of months."

The Gills boss clearly enjoyed being back on the training ground, "Most of all its nice to be back around the players,enjoying a little bit of banter and feeling like your back at work. We had 18 back in total with a good mixture of senior players and some of the young first year pros."

"We were obviously missing one or two boys that were away on their holidays but they'll be back in for training in the next few weeks. As long as everyone comes in for 3 or 4 of these sessions and looks after themselves while they are on holiday we'll be in good shape for serious training come July 2nd."

And Stimson has no major injury concerns to contend with, "Touch wood, we have no worries fitness wise, Adam Miller is the principle concern after his groin operation but he's been working with the physio Paul Smith today and he's on course to be fit in time for the first pre-season friendly."

The Gills players will be returning for training this Thursday with sessions continuing twice weekly through out June.