Take That star Gary Barlow has opened up about the gruelling nature of being a contestant on The X Factor and has advised this year's hopefuls to expect "hard work".

He explained how people seem to think that it's just the all-important Saturday night performance that matters when in fact it's just a very small part of what The X Factor is really about:

"The performance on a Saturday night is the gift after a week of hard work: 'You've done all this work and here's your prize - you get to go on stage and perform. The rest of it is all hard work - interviews, being filmed, working out your song, practising your song and working out how you will translate it to the audience."

"I think a lot of them get a shock. They all arrive thinking they only have to work on a Saturday night so it's a sharp wake-up call when it's not."

Despite the warning, Barlow added that people quickly become conditioned to the demanding schedule and find that it's very rewarding when fully embraced:

"One thing I noticed about last year is that some of the acts take to being in the X Factor environment like ducks to water and they just thrive on it. Every week they come back better and better, whilst there are others that just get worse each week, taking the criticism badly and finding it hard to move forward."

Watch Barlow's performance at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert below: