A week in Provence awaits Bath Rugby as they prepare for a pre-season camp and warm-up match in the south of France.

The entire Bath squad will decamp to Aix-en-Provence at the start of August for a week's training.

The trip will conclude with a match at Bouches-du-Rhône on Friday, August 6 against French second-tier side Pays d'Aix.

The Gallic flavour of Bath's build up to the 2010-11 Guinness Premiership campaign comes after Bruce Craig, a former scrum-half for Parisian side Racing Metro 92, took over the club in April.

Craig, a passionate Francophile who built up a successful pharmaceutical distribution business in the country, now wants Bath's pre-season to have a truly international flavour.

His stated ambition is for Bath to re-emerge as one of the most feared sides in Europe and a spell in French rugby's southern heartland will only assist in rebuilding that perception.

The sojourn to France represents a break with tradition, with Bath having travelled to Portugal for their last couple of pre-season camps.

Steve Meehan's squad are assured of a warm welcome in Aix, with the city having been twinned with Bath for 32 years.

But before the joys of a Provencal expedition, the Bath squad have a month of graft on home soil.

The players will report for duty on Monday, except for those who have been on international duty this summer. They will begin their pre-season four weeks later on July 26.

Among those clocking on next week will be new signings Sam Vesty, Simon Taylor, Mark McMillan, Tom Biggs and Ross Batty.

The man who will put the Bath squad through their paces is Paul Bunce, the club's head of strength and conditioning.

This will be Bunce's third pre-season at Bath – and the Kiwi has a few tricks up his sleeve.

Yoga sessions await the Bath players, while extra bouts of wrestling are also on the cards.

While pleased with the squad's fitness last season, Bunce wants to see a further improvement this year of "five to ten per cent".

And while last season's programme will be tweaked, the Kiwi admits the nuts and bolts will remain the same.

"You can't get away from working really hard and busting a gut: shifting tyres, wrestling, sprinting – the running-until-you-vomit scenario," he said.

Last year's early pre-season was a tough one for the Bath squad with one member, Joe Maddock, even passing out.

"As a coaching team we were happy at how the guys came through pre-season last year, so we have a model in place that we know works," explained Bunce.

"There will be greater attention to individuals.

"If someone needs to get bigger or get faster, we will work specifically on that.

"And as well as more combative stuff, such as wrestling, we'll introduce yoga.

"We need to do more flexibility work as part of our injury-prevention programme.

"A fun way to do it is to put the guys in a different environment with a different instructor. It's a training session they won't have done before."

With some players having played rugby week in, week out since last September, Bunce is conscious Bath's international stars will need to be handled carefully.

"You've got to be wise," he said. "People talk about burnout but I don't always think it's caused by too many rugby games.

"It's down to a lack of general preparation and the inability to rest at the right time."