I know most of the readers who stop by the blog regularly are cool cats and will get the headline reference straight away, but just in case you’re one of those awful squares, it’s a nod to the now infamous ‘Double Rainbow’ video made even more popular by the Auto-Tune the News folk.

It remains something of a meme in my household and I’ll never miss an opportunity to respond to two barks from my dog at the back door, for instance, requesting to go out, with a quick “Double bark? What does it mean?!?” I know, hilarious. My wife still thinks so after a month or two of doing this, I can tell.

So what do dogs and rainbows have to do with Aston Villa? Very little, but the biggest news at the moment, aside from Stewart Downing’s call up, seems to be that Gérard Houllier has called the squad in for double training session in an effort to address fitness.

Fitness has never really been a big weakness over the last few seasons, but if it’s something that’s been neglected over the last couple of months and now needs to be addressed, that’s perfectly understandable. I doubt Houllier will be receiving the criticism levelled at Roberto Mancini recently.

But what is double training? Luke Young explains:-

Luke Young
We’ve had double training sessions with fitness work in the morning and more technical football in the afternoon.

I think the manager wants us as fit as we possibly can be and we have no complaints. If I was a manager, that’s exactly what I would want as well and the lads are enjoying it.

We’re just glad to get the morning sessions out of the way so at least we can have a bit of football in the afternoons. It’s been good. Everything is being taken on board.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been extremely skeptical about the tiredness of players toward the end of the season and this is precisely why. I know being a professional athlete is a life style choice as much as anything and they have to give up evenings and weekends to play, plus there’s the regular travel and nights away from home, but the actual “working week” is extremely limited.

So much so, that being asked to stay at Bodymoor past lunch time is news, albeit during an interlull.

The Working Week According To Nigel Reo-Coker

Back in 2008, Nigel Reo-Coker sat down with The Guardian as part of a Money section series on working lives providing an insight into the life of a top level professional footballer. I’ve referred to it often as I think it allows a fascinating glimpse into that life and also Reo-Coker himself: clearly an intelligent and hard working professional.

It will obviously vary a little from club to club and as the fixture calendar dictates, but here’s how the working week is described in the interview:-

These days, however, many people would regard Reo-Coker’s life as almost idyllic – and he would agree with them. “Monday, you’d come in and do a warm-down training session,” he explains. “You’d probably be out there on the pitch for an hour, an hour and a half. My general routine would be: I’d get in early, about 9am, have a green tea, breakfast, relax, go and see the physios if I have any problems. Then you start training at 10.30am, come back around 12pm … And after you’ve finished there’s lunch – loads of organic food, prepared by chefs. Eat, and then the rest of the day is yours. You can always set off by 1pm.”

Tuesdays typically follow the same pattern, after which Wednesdays is a day off. Thursdays are like Monday and Tuesday again, and then Friday brings on just a light training session – “an hour maximum” – before the team spend the evening in a hotel together in preparation for Saturday’s game. Then at the end of the season, there is the summer break, the length of which varies, but most players get at least the whole of June off. “It’s a very privileged life,” Reo-Coker admits, and it is hard to argue.

NRC is apparently pretty dedicated by getting in “early” at 9am, but the actual training doesn’t get started until 10.30am and it’s over by noon, but they get fed before they’re done for the day around 1pm. Indeed, a very privileged life, even without the huge salaries.

Not that I’m begrudging anyone of anything, I just struggle to buy the concept of these professional athletes being physical wrecks by March and being asked to work in the afternoon is anything particularly newsworthy.

Still, there’s not much else to write about and I’m jumping on it too. At least we all now know what double training means and I’ve managed to avoid making any reference to my favourite accidental singer, the ‘Bed Intruder Song‘.

Whoops.