Pre-season is under way at the Gold Coast SUNS, and new High Performance Manager Stephen Schwerdt believes the first week is absolutely crucial for himself and the new High Performance Team.

"This first week at training, and the conversations we have with the coaching staff are really important to get us as much information about the players as we can," said Schwerdt.

It is going to be a steep learning curve for us (the High Performance Team) in terms of learning which players we have to push harder, and who we have to pull back a bit more.

Schwerdt has spent the last twelve seasons at the Adelaide Crows, and is highly regarded within the industry.

He said the chance to work with a talented young squad was too good an opportunity to refuse.

"That was a fair motivation to come here," he said.

"The opportunity to work with a group that has got such a big upside, and given a lot of them are into their third year they are ready to do some decent training."

It's time to step up and do some work and train like elite AFL players will do at any club.

Schwerdt says there will be a combination of bulking up and endurance throughout the pre-season.

"We will be doing four or five weight sessions a week, so we will see some improvement there," he said.

"They need to develop a really strong core endurance base so they can sustain their effort for a longer time."

"It will be a lot of balancing out between the two, but we will continue to try and put some size on the team and try to make them stay in games for longer."

Schwerdt has two main focuses which he will use to judge the progression of the playing group in 2013.

"I am aiming to get some real continuity in their training and playing, so we are doing it consistently and there is a high availability of players," he said.

A bit more resilience and hardness to be able to stay in games for longer.

"They will be the two areas of performance I will be keen to monitor."