SHWAN Jalal played for Cherries for six years until 2014, when he joined Bury. He spent the 2016-17 season at National League side Wrexham

“TOUCH the post. Dive. Up. Touch the other post. Dive. Up.”

“Mossy, I can’t feel my legs.”

“Come on, Jal. One more and you’re done. It’s all in the bank.”

For six fantastic years, I performed this routine daily at Cherries but with no way of knowing exactly how it was benefiting me or making me fitter.

Head of sport science Dan Hodges and goalkeeping coach Neil Moss devised pre-training plyometrics sessions to boost speed and power but they had no tool to measure the extent to which it was improving me, Darryl Flahavan or Ryan Allsop.

However, Cherries have since linked up with analytics firm Catapult to monitor training loads and the physical capabilities of the club’s custodians.

Their software allows the sport science team to analyse the explosive moves a keeper makes which a heart monitor or camera cannot capture.

Cherries’ goalkeeping-specific sport scientist Anthony White feels the software will benefit the club’s stoppers in the long run.

He said: “The goalkeepers have bought into being monitored.

“After explaining to them the importance of the monitoring system and the information we get back, the keepers are asking for their stats and want to understand more.

“We have now formed a regime and a structure they use daily.”

It was thought by many that Cherries’ promotion from League Two in 2010 was due to the club’s players being fitter and stronger than their peers, following the appointment of John Dalziel as strength and conditioning coach.

I personally found huge benefits at being in the gym regularly and now the training has been taken to another level.

White said: “Mossy and me design comprehensive sessions which take into account the physical, technical and psychological needs of each goalkeeper and adapt certain elements to improve movement based on the feedback from the monitors.

“For example, if a goalkeeper hadn’t performed as many vertical jumps in a session as we would have liked, the next session would maybe be a cross-taking session to increase his vertical jump count.”

And White believes the methods are working.

He added: “The goalkeepers have certainly improved. Is this down to coaching, performance work or both? I would suggest both, as well as the sheer hard work the lads have put in.”