Adam Webster has revealed exactly how Bristol City took his game to the next level having cemented his reputation as one of the Premier League's most reliable central defenders.
Lee Johnson signed the 27-year-old in the summer of 2018 for an initial £3.5million fee with the potential to rise to £8m following two impressive campaigns with Championship rivals Ipswich.
Webster would spend just one season at Ashton Gate before earning a Premier League switch to Brighton in a club-record £20m deal. During his three seasons in the top flight, the defender has impressed under Graham Potter and was even tipped for an England call-up in March before a calf and a groin problem left him on the sidelines for the majority of the second half of last season.
He was also linked with a big money move to Chelsea, in which the Robins would receive a cash windfall should a deal go through in the future. But Webster insists it was Johnson's training methods, which were more advanced than what he was doing under Mick McCarthy at Ipswich, that ensured he could improve his game and become more vocal on the field.
Speaking on the E-Perform football podcast, he said: "The manager Lee Johnson, coaches Dean Holden and Jamie McAllister, they were big in my development. We used to do clips as a team. I'd gone from Ipswich where it was just me, to having clips of the team where we could all improve and that helped me because it didn't feel like they were singling you out.
"When I first signed at Bristol City, Johnson in pre-season we used to wear a GPS vest and he used to put a microphone on one of them so he could listen to what you're saying. I might wear it for 45 minutes and then Marlon Pack might wear it.
"When you know you've got that microphone on, you don't stop talking. It's mental. It's literally because you know that they're listening. He would watch the game back the next day with the microphone on at the same time as the game so he could see what you're saying.
"That was just for pre-season but he chucked it on me for the first away game of the season at QPR literally 10 minutes before the game but in the game, you're so vocal and it makes you concentrate more and that definitely helped. That probably helped a lot in my game because I became a big talker whereas probably I wouldn't have done it before."
Webster also revealed how City's individual training programmes and their encouragement to keep on top of nutrition were key to ensuring he would remain fit throughout the season. He would go on to become the club's Player of the Year with his side finishing the campaign in eighth.
Injuries during his time with Ipswich limited Webster to 51 league appearances across two seasons and before joining the Robins, he had never featured in over 30 league matches in the duration of one campaign. In his one season in BS3, Webster would feature in 47 Championship and cup games.
"The nutrition side was a big part of it (his fitness)," he added. "We used to have this website that they'd give to us which used to have meals and recipes and the Mrs used to do quite a lot of them. That definitely helped from that point of view.
"It was also the first time I'd probably done leg weights we used to have individual programmes. Our typical week was in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, train Friday and play Saturday.
"On a Tuesday we'd do isometrics in the gym, and then on Wednesday, we'd have a heavier day where we'd do two top speed sprints to prevent hamstring injuries which is massive because in training you might not sprint full pelt.
"That was a big way of preventing hamstring injuries and that was the first time I'd done that. After training, we'd do leg weights and it would all be recorded which would measure our power and you've got to get above a certain amount.
"So you'd record 120 for example, the next week hit 130, the week after 140 and then you'd have a low week and that was massive to prevent hamstring injuries that season. And I struggled with that before every season.
"It gave me the chance to play every game. I played almost 47 games that season which was the most I ever played and that was massive. At Ipswich, they didn't really do that."
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