Lots of sleep‚ ice baths‚ injury prevention exercises and healthy diet are part of the stringent health and fitness regime followed by Mamelodi Sundowns midfielder Lebohang Maboe in his bid to mitigate the club's relentless programme.

Sundowns‚ who are one of the busiest teams on the continent‚ have played 35 matches that include Caf Champions League trips to Tanzania‚ Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan.

The ever present Maboe has featured in 31 of 35 of those matches in all competitions since their campaign started in November 2020.

Their programme continues on Wednesday when they host third-placed Lamontville Golden Arrows at Loftus looking to get back to winning ways after they were stunned by Kaizer Chiefs in a 1-2 defeat at the weekend weekend.

“There are a number of things that I do to recover or at least give myself a chance to recovering properly‚ during these testing times where we have a game after every second or third day‚” said Maboe who has been one of the standout performers for Sundowns.

“I do my ice baths‚ time in the heated pool‚ injury prevention exercises‚ warm water with Epsom salt‚ lots of sleep and lots of veggies to help with help with my recovery.

"These things really help the body because it is very important to recover well and not to yourself dealing with injuries.”

Maboe also highlighted the importance of eating healthy and getting enough sleep.

“I try to get as much rest as I possibly can. On my off days I try to be at home and just lazy around on my couch or in bed so that I can rest my body.

"I don’t sleep anything less than eight hours to be honest‚ mostly it is nine or even ten hours of sleep.

"Having enough sleep helps a great deal in times like these where we have so many games coming in.”

“The workload really gets to the body hence it’s very important that you recover well so that you don’t find yourself having to deal with an injury or something like that.

“My diet consists of a lot of veggies‚ fish and chicken and in the evening I try by all means to avoid starch like pap or rice.

"I don’t mind having pap or rice for lunch but it is always in small portion and in the evening I have veggies with fish or chicken depending on what I want.”

With a punishing schedule like this‚ Maboe said at Chloorkop hardly get involved in hard training sessions due to their extensive travelling schedule and recovery sessions.

“It’s been a while since we had a proper hard training session.

"We can’t have a tough session with the amount of games that we have to play‚ you can’t be playing after every second or third day and you still want to have hard training sessions.

"During this time of the season‚ we don’t have many hard sessions as we would normally have at the beginning of the season because we want everyone to be fit.”