Designed to measure the optimum aerobic capacity and oxygen uptake of an athlete during intense exercise, the tests were undertaken by most players last summer.
However it was a whole new experience for defender Daniel Pratt, who was first on the treadmill this time.
After a blood sample and light warm-up, he ran at 12 kilometres per hour (kmh) for two minutes with the speed increased by half a kilometre every 60 seconds. He was only allowed to breathe through his mouth.
The eight-minute block took him through to 16kmh: a level set by the university exercise science staff and students when projecting his fatigue.
"I was starting to feel it a bit," Pratt said, once the colour had returned to his face. "We had training this morning as well. It was pretty tough.
"I was coming back from a shoulder reco [last] pre-season so I didn't do all the testing. A few of the young boys did it during the year.
"It was good to try something new and it's good the club has gone down this path with a bit more high-tech stuff."
Pratt's heart-rate peaked at 184 beats per minute.
Coach Brad Scott has stressed that his players need to realise they now have the best possible resources at their disposal and Pratt said high-performance testing would go hand-in-hand with the club's new Arden Street facilities.
"It will be great," he said. "With Scotty coming on board, he's got the sports science background so he's got a fair idea of what's required.
"[With him] coming from Collingwood, they've got all the facilities that they need so going into a new place will be good to do the testing as well as lift the bar."
Teammates Ed Lower, Hamish McIntosh, Brady Rawlings and Nathan Grima were among others involved in the VO2 max study.
In an adjacent room, Michael Firrito, Cruize Garlett, Ben Ross, Warren Benjamin and Marcus White had their hamstring and quad strength measured by a KIN-COM dynamometer.
Seated, the players were asked to extend and retract their legs as hard as they could, with the equipment preventing movement any greater than 60 degrees per second.
Significant differentials between hamstring and quad strength can help the club's medical staff identify a player's vulnerability to injury.
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