The Norm Smith medallist did not play during the Hawks' NAB Cup campaign, after post-season surgery to repair a damaged posterior cruciate ligament.
While confident his knee is now back to 100 per cent health, Hodge maintains he will not rush to return against Geelong on Easter Monday in 13 days' time.
"We've got a fairly physical hit out on Friday, which I'll be playing in with the boys," Hodge said on Tuesday.
"I saw the surgeon three weeks ago just as a follow up, and he said there are no limitations on the knee.
"The only thing I've got to do now is work with the physios and the conditioning guys to get everything else – the calves, hamstrings – ready for the start of the season."
Hodge suffered a calf injury at Hawthorn's final training session before its round one clash with Collingwood last year that kept him out for four weeks.
He is determined not to push his body too hard and suffer a similar setback again.
"This time of year, you're always keen to get out there and play, but I made the mistake last year of coming back a little bit too early with the calf," the 28-year-old said.
"We deliberately haven't set a day that I'm going to be back.
"We'll just take it as it comes.
"When the body feels right and they're happy that I've done enough work, we'll be ready to go then."
Hodge said despite some injury concerns, including Cyril Rioli (ankle) and Brian Lake (calf), the Hawks were well-placed to take on the Cats.
"We've been reasonably lucky throughout the pre-season that a lot of the guys have completed most of it," he said.
"Brian is a bit of an issue, but he reckons he's starting to feel good; I ran with him the other day and he looked very good.
"I think the majority of the guys have had at least one or two games of footy."
Luke Hodge is a midfielder in AFL Fantasy. He averaged 77.4 points in 2012. Register your team at our AFL Fantasy hub.
