Braintree Town’s new management team hope their summer fitness plans can prevent the injuries that blighted much of the Iron’s Conference Premier campaign last season.

A run of bad luck meant key members of the squad missed large parts of the 2014/15 season.

But, with the squad due back to start their pre-season training today, assistant manager Nicky Cowley said he and his brother – manager Danny Cowley – will be working with the players during their summer programme to try to make sure there is no repeat in the Vanarama National League this year.

The brothers both have Sports Science degrees and will be putting that knowledge to good use in developing the fitness schedules they found great success with during eight seasons in charge of Concord Rangers.

Nicky said: “Danny and I try to be meticulous with our planning.

“We are big believers that if we plan well then everyone can work cohesively.

“It’s a similar programme to the one we used at Concord but we try to read as much as we can about training techniques and we always try to develop the programmes each year to make them better.

“We look at what we have done previously but each year we try to evolve it and add new details.

“We do plan for injuries and have recovery elements included with things like ice baths, but we also look to include core strength programmes.

“If you get the core strength right, that will be the foundation for everything and picking up these types of injuries can hopefully be avoided.

“I’m not saying that it will totally be avoided but we feel that you increase your chances of having fully fit players if you put the right core programmes in place."