Stronger, faster, and with enough confidence that he feels like he could leg press a car, Olympian Patrick Singleton is chasing a place at his fourth Winter Games.

The skeleton driver has spent the summer enduring a torturous training regime at the hands of the British Olympic coaches in Bath, and has the horror stories, like being told to drink fish oil and being innoculated against Swine Flu, to prove it.

But the training has paid off. Singleton has shattered his personal bests in both speed and strength, and two months before he attempts to qualify for the Vancouver Games next year the Bermudian says he's in the best shape of his life.

"The first three months were torture, I knew they were going to be horrible, just because I have been through it before but I wasn't in great condition in May, and every week was torture," said Singleton.

"I basically do the exact same training as the British team, because we are all in one group and some of them were suffering as well. And I thought it was never going to end. May was bad, June was bad, July was worse, and then all of a sudden it all went swimmingly, amazingly well.

"All the conditioning work was done and then you get to strength and speed, and every week I was getting faster and stronger, faster and stronger. And by the middle of August I was stronger than I had ever been before, not as fast, and then the last week I broke all my personal bests in strength and speed.

"So I'm now faster than I have ever been before, and I feel like I could leg press a car."

Back in Bermuda for a brief rest, and to drum up some support for the next leg of his mission, Singleton gave a brief glimpse into the training that has turned the British Olympic programme into one of the best in the world.

It's the same programme that produced the dominant display Great Britain gave in cycling at last year's Summer Games, and the one that the host nation hopes will see them produce even better results in London in 2012.

"I'm just so fortunate to be part of the British programme," he said. "The Brits have refined their training techniques, it's so advanced, so specific, you're in the gym only the maximum amount of time you need to be, not longer, not less, you completely maximise all your needs, and the training structure is designed so that everything you do, nothing is wasted.

"You do whatever you are told, no matter how awful. We were told 'you have to drink 15ml of fish oil', and it's disgusting stuff, but we all drink it, and we start taking it every day, and it's grim, but you do whatever you are told, and it's that focused.

"If you want to do well in the Olympics today you have to be focused, you can't do it half-heartedly, it's 100 percent or nothing. In the old days it was different, but not now."

Singleton will return to the UK this week for more training, before he and the rest of the GB squad head to Italy to put everything into practice on the ice before a test event at the Whistler Olympic course, in Vancouver. Then in November the real work starts, seven races in which to qualify for next February's Games.

"Italy will be the first real test to see how things are going," said Singleton.

"If you were to say on paper, I would be well within qualifying, and the coaches think so as well, but it doesn't always work that way. It's seven races, and you have to be consistently good over those races, but I have the advantage of three Olympic Games under my belt, and 12 years of racing on different circuits. That experience counts.

"If you have one bad race a lot of athletes might get down mentally, you have to be able to perform over two, three months, that's the hard part, and I think being with a great team, will help."

The training, the torture, the devotion, all will come down to seven races starting in November and ending in the middle of January. Then, if he qualifies, it will be up to the Bermuda Olympic Association to give Singleton the final nod.

Those things, however, are in the future. For now the Bermudian is focused on what lies immediately ahead, more training, more commitment, and pushing himself to go faster than he has before.

"In skeleton the start is 30 percent of the run. I may not be the fastest starter in the world but I have the advantage of being in great condition, and I have another two months to practise before I get back on the ice."