The Brumbies have had a light training week, having covered more than 15,000km and switched through 10 different time zones in the last seven days before Saturday night's semi-final with the Hurricanes in Wellington.

It comes less than a week after the Brumbies defeated the Stormers 39-19 in Cape Town in the early hours of Sunday morning (AEST).

The Brumbies returned to Canberra on Monday night before flying to Wellington on Thursday.

Professor Andrew Stewart is the director of research training and associate professor of clinical exercise science and rehabilitation in the college of sport and exercise science at Victoria University.

He is about to start a three-year study on the impact of long-haul travel on elite athletes which has the support of Super Rugby teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and the Australian Institute of Sport.

Professor Stewart said the Super Rugby competition, with its long-haul travel in short spaces of time, presented a unique challenge to elite athletes.

"A lot of it is mental," Stewart said.

"Physically, there should be no reason why they're not performing as well as they normally do.

"You can reset relatively quickly in a matter of days.

"Mentally, they've got to make an adjustment.

"They are professional athletes and most of them have done this for years and the fact it's a semi-final will get them through."

Professor Stewart said it generally took elite athletes half a day to recover from every change of time-zone before they returned to their peak.

For the Brumbies, that means it would have taken them four days to recover after returning from South Africa, and another day after landing in New Zealand.

Professor Stewart said he suspected players would have been given melatonin supplementation to assist with their sleep, while others would use caffeine or change their diet.

"It's about getting the balance right, everyone's different," Professor Stewart said.

"Some will try different light exposure during the day and others will try behavioural strategies so mentally they are switching to the new time zone.

"It's not just the players – we want to have team staff and management involved in the study as well because we know decision-making is affected substantially when you are jet-lagged."

Brumbies prop Scott Sio said the players had made sure since leaving Cape Town they had the best recovery possible.

"It's a mixture of things – stretching and getting into hot and cold baths to make sure the body is ready to go at training," Sio said.

"Our medical and strength and conditioning team have been really great at managing our load and understanding the importance of recovery.

"Everything's been put in place, it's comes down to the individual and whether he wants to take the steps to make sure he's 100 per cent fit."

Professor Stewart said the scientific research in how long-haul travel affects elite athletes was scarce.

He said the Super Rugby competition had several unique factors, especially with teams from Argentina and Japan included next season.

"Every single team and athlete does it on a trial and error approach," he said.

"There are some principles and there are some guidelines, but really, there is nothing concrete out there about what are the best strategies to cope with it.

"It's got massive implications and it's a global first."