The balance was a delicate one for Tom Powell this summer. Improve your running capacity, but don't lose any of your muscle. Get stronger through the legs, but don't do it at the cost of your upper body.

Powell arrived at Arden Street as a scrawny, undersized and underdeveloped young midfielder in 2020. It's why the focus through most of his first four summers at the club had been squarely fixed on muscle mass.

That part was easy. This pre-season, though, has been anything but.

The 22-year-old returned to Adelaide over his summer break with a complex training program set for him by North Melbourne's strength and conditioning team.

It would be one dedicated to finding an equilibrium within his body – a tough task to juggle – but one that he set about ripping through with as much dedication and focus as possible.

"I spent a fair bit of time in my early years eating food and lifting weights, trying to get as heavy as possible. But this year I found it almost harder than just putting on weight," Powell told AFL.com.au from Arden Street this week.

"I felt like I could do that quite easily. You eat whatever you want and you lift weights as often as possible, you smash the creatine. But keeping fit and not losing weight while you're running and pushing yourself with your running, but also not losing your running capacity by trying to keep your weight and your size, it is hard to find that balance."

Powell certainly managed to accomplish the task set for him by North Melbourne's fitness gurus, though. He returned from his off-season break having maintained his same playing weight, just as he was asked.

But he did that while being able to knock a couple of seconds from his personal best time trial marker when he returned in November. What's more, he then shaved a couple more seconds from that time when he came back from his Christmas break a few weeks later.

The result has been a period where just about everyone at the Kangas, including captain Jy Simpkin earlier this week, has earmarked Powell as the standout on the track throughout the summer.

"You can get through the sessions in the off-season by plodding away. But I always try to push myself as much as I can, just because I know I'll be getting stuff out of it. I know when I'm out there running the time trial, doing it on some s****y oval in Adelaide, then I'll be fine to push through when I'm doing it here in front of the coaches and my teammates," Powell said.

"I've put a bit more attention on the lower body strength this summer, compared to the uppers. I need to be a bit stronger through the legs to break tackles, run at speed and explode from stoppage and things like that. That's something that's going to hold me in better stead in the future. I'm starting to see some benefits from that already, for sure."

Powell has seemingly always had the tools to excel. There have been glimpses of the ball accumulation, the lateral movement, the power, the clean hands and the kicking ability throughout his first four seasons in the League. But his most recent evolution might unlock the final progression to becoming an elite-level midfielder: consistency.

"It was always going to take time," North Melbourne midfield coach Leigh Adams told AFL.com.au.

"I reckon he was really diligent in his first couple of years in getting his upper body to a level that would allow him to compete. Now he's been able to put that lower leg program together and he looks like he's able to fend off, tackle and drive through groundballs a bit better. He's playing with the men now and he looks like one of the men."

Another inspiration for Powell's top summer has been his new teammates. A self-confessed 'footy head', the Kangas youngster grew up watching the likes of Luke Parker, Caleb Daniel and Jack Darling win premierships with rival clubs. Now, he gets to play and train alongside them every day.

Parker has been invaluable in helping Powell with his midfield craft, Daniel has given him a new benchmark for his already sharp kicking skills, while Darling will provide another experienced forward target to deliver to throughout the campaign ahead.

"I grew up watching a lot of them play," Powell said.

"Luke's work in the contest is elite. It's an area of my game that I'd love to improve on. I'm trying to go head-to-head with him as much as possible, which is something that's awesome.

"Even Caleb, some of his ball use and decision making and kicking off half-back is something that I'm trying to work on. I thought I was a half-decent kick of the footy, then I see him at training sizzling them around. Geez, he's a much better kick than me. Obviously, I knew that before he got to the club from watching on TV. But seeing him out here at training, it's just on another level."

Powell is now deemed a near-certain starter in a talented young North Melbourne midfield group that was added to once again over the summer. His emergence as a potential breakout player, combined with the quality in depth provided by Luke Davies-Uniacke, Harry Sheezel, George Wardlaw, Simpkin, Parker, Colby McKercher, Will Phillips and Finn O'Sullivan, is seen as a key part in the club's hopes of rising up the ladder in 2025.

"I've always felt very optimistic at this time of year," Powell said.

"I've never felt like we're going to be down the bottom and obviously I don't again this year, but it is time for this sort of talk to come to fruition. We've been saying that we need to be on the up and improving for a while now. Now is definitely the time where we need to take that next step, win a lot more games and play a lot more consistent footy."

But as well as aiding North Melbourne's holistic improvement, Powell is also seen as a prospect that can individually become one of the game's top-tier midfielders across the next 12 months. If consistency follows the glimpses of potential shown across his first 68 senior games to date, the Kangas believe a breakout year is on the cards.

"That will be his next progression," Adams said.

"At the moment, I just don't see any flaws in his game physically or fundamentally that would keep him down for an extended period of time. Touch wood he gets some good luck with injury, but if he's fit and firing he just finds ways to impact games. Normally it's with ball in hand but if he's not getting it 30 times, you know he's going to use it well and he's going to have an impact on the game anyway.

"There's also a little bit of – not a lack of confidence because he's got some real confidence in his game – but there's that belief he can actually be elite. I think now he's got the evidence that he can actually match it with the best. He's doing that at the moment."