The Highlanders went back into camp yesterday and the first pre-season match for the side is less than three weeks away.
Its first Super 14 competition game is in just over a month.
The players had a two-week break over the Christmas holidays but it was not all beer and skittles for them.
They still had training to keep up fitness levels and spent yesterday having those fitness levels tested to see they had not eaten too much Christmas pudding.
More testing will be carried out today before the side starts training with a rugby ball tomorrow.
It will then have regular team rugby-related trainings, building up for a season creeping ever closer.
Ross Kennedy, Ben Smith, David Hall and Fetu'u Vainikolo did not take a full part in training yesterday - instead doing training drills - because of injury, but it is too soon to say if all players will be available for the first pre-season match.
The squad is in better shape than this time last year when eight players could not train fully after returning from the Christmas break.
All Black prop Jamie Mackintosh was in camp for the first time and did some fitness testing while the side's other All Blacks, loose forward Adam Thomson and halfback Jimmy Cowan, are still on leave and not expected back with the squad until later in the month.
The Highlanders play their first pre-season game against the Chiefs in Rotorua on January 23 and then take on the Crusaders in Timaru on January 30.
Its final pre-season game is against the Blues at Albany Stadium on February 5.
The Highlanders open the 2009 Super 14 competition with a match against the Brumbies at Carisbrook on February 13.
