It's not just shuttle runs and press-ups. Evening Press sports reporter Claire Hughes finds out more from the man behind the muscle at York City Knights Rugby League Club...

According to Muhammad Ali, champions are not made in gyms.

And to an extent, York City Knights conditioner Colin Sanctuary would have to agree.

His name was the one quoted week in, week out during the Knights' promotion-winning 2005 season as the team repeatedly found a reserve tank stacked full of fuel when a comeback was required.

"The fitness aspect last year was just one of the many factors that helped," he shrugs.

"I don't think it was the be all and end all that some people made it out to be."

Modesty aside, it was a key factor in the LHF Healthplan National League Two title triumph.

And it will be even more important as they face a National League One which includes a number of full-time clubs and a host of Super League veterans. Oh, and the last two sides to go up have come down just as quickly.

Sanctuary said: "The test will come when we go up against the guys who have been full-time. We are only part-time so we are very limited with what we can do.

"I think it was quite nice when we played St Helens in the Challenge Cup last year.

"We were playing a side who are full-time at the highest level of the sport and so, okay, we got beat by 60-odd points, but the players were still in there working hard until the 80th minute, expending at the level they were at the start, which was testament to all the hard work they'd done.

"We've got to be doing that on a more regular basis in National One.

"It will be very interesting to see how we do against certain teams in the division who have been full-time.

"I hope we will be up there -

the players deserve some sort of reward for all their efforts."

He continued: "The guys have worked exceptionally hard in pre-season training so far.

"They've come back at a higher level of fitness than what they had last season, which is really important.

"They can use work they are now doing to build on what they have done previously rather than start from scratch as can easily happen during the dip before pre-season."

This is Sanctuary's fourth season behind the scenes at Huntington Stadium, one of several jobs he undertakes as a fitness guru - others include an attachment to Durham County Cricket Club and a lecturing role at York St John College.

And the emphasis on teamwork in the backroom at the Knights is as strong as it is on the field.

He said: "I'll talk to Mick Cook (Knights head coach) and if he's doing something on tackles or line speed, I will try to come up with something that relates to those aspects.

"The idea is you are all working towards the same end goal.

"The drills have got to meet the requirement of what you're developing. I think you sometimes see people like fitness coaches and conditioners doing drills for the sake of them - they don't know what they are doing or why.

"The most important thing is to make them relevant - how else are you going to learn?"

But despite the focus on the task in hand, the individual player is still important to the sports scientist who is on the final leg of a PhD examining the effect of psychological influences on success.

"You have got to be a bit sensitive to the way people are," he said.

"Different guys have different needs - you can't treat them as a group. In some ways you have got to address them as a group, but if certain guys have certain needs, you keep your eye on things and see what's happening.

"I'm not one for the berating of players if it's just getting them down. You're not there to beat them with a big stick."

Indeed. After all, the will has to be greater than the skill.

New accolade for Knights' conditioner

York City Knights and Leeds Rhinos will be on the lips of some of the world's top sports gurus at the Commonwealth Games thanks to Colin Sanctuary.

The Knights' fitness coach has had a research paper looking at the differences between full and part-time professional rugby league pre-seasons accepted for presentation at the 13th Commonwealth International Sport Conference in Melbourne in March.

The work has been carried out with Leeds Rhinos and now Wigan Warriors assistant conditioner Andreas Liefeith, who is also the biomenchanics lecturer at York St John College, where Sanctuary also teaches.

It compares the different pre-season development of the Leeds Rhinos and York City Knights.

Sanctuary presented a lecture at the second World Congress of Sports Science and Medicine in Cricket in Cape Town in 2003 but this time round he will be staying in the UK due to other commitments.

Updated: 09:53 Wednesday, January 18, 2006