FREMANTLE has identified contested football as a glaring weakness in its game and will embark on a summer of "combative" pre-season training to rectify it, according to sports science manager Jason Weber.

After dubbing the 2009 pre-season the "summer of pain", Weber promised another gruelling preparation for his players, who will return to training in three groups over the next two weeks.

The second and third-year players will launch their programs on Monday and Weber said they could expect contested, combative training right from the outset.

"Last year they may have been able to sit back in their own little world, that won't happen this year," Weber told fremantlefc.com.au.

"They'll have to engage the opposition all the time from next week - even our very basic drills will be contested.

"I definitely think it will be in the painful department, but what it will be for them this year is much more combative.

"There is a much, much greater focus on what we said we've identified as our weakness, which is contested ball."

After a 2008 season marred by final quarter fade-outs, Fremantle dramatically increased its pre-season training load.

While not abandoning the gains made aerobically in the 2009 pre-season, Weber said the focus would now shift to building "size, strength and seasoned characteristics" in the players.

"Mark (coach Mark Harvey) has got some specific directions he wants to take the team in, in terms of technical application to the game," Weber said.

"I think you'll see a change in the way we play the game (and) we have to support that via physical means.

"We'll literally have to support the players, give them the strength, the power - the armour if you like - to go into battle in that manner."

Weber said planning for his second pre-season with Fremantle began in July this year.

In consultation with Harvey and the entire football department, the fitness coach moulded a pre-season program he says is 200-300 per cent more detailed than that of 2009.

"Players who have already been around have seen some of our planning and seen that there's a massive difference," he said. 

"The main consideration in that is that last year I was new, my staff were new, the football coaches didn't know us, we didn't know them.

"Mark was still in the process of formulating the concept about the way he wants to play the game (whereas) this year a lot of that stuff is set in stone. We're very, very clear on what's going on."

Weber, who crossed to Fremantle after six years as the Australian rugby union side's physical performance coach, said he learned plenty in his first season in the AFL system.

He added that his focus would be to create elite footballers, not simply elite athletes. 

"We're not here to weight-lift, we're not here to run 400s - we're here to play football," he said. 

"Every single thing we will be doing at every moment of the season, if you are challenged as to why you're doing it, it has to relate to football directly. If it doesn’t, we don’t do it - simple as that."

Watch Jason Weber's full interview no on FTV- CLICK HERE