THE WESTERN Bulldogs will fly to the United States on Friday morning for their highly-anticipated training camp at the Athletes' Performance facility in Phoenix, Arizona.
The players will be put through their paces at the professional centre that promotes the mission statement: "to provide athletes with ethical alternatives to achieve their greatest performance goals".
Assistant coach Leon Cameron said it was fantastic that the Dogs were able to embark on the camp, having not been in the financial position in the past.
"Obviously we haven't been on some of these overseas training camps before, so it's great," he said.
"We're over there for about four or five days and we hand the players over to that facility, and they go through them.
"We're really looking forward to that. The great thing about it is we've been building for this for a few years.
"The players, all people that are going, are contributing to the trip – all the players, all the staff. It's fantastic that our lads can go along and see these elite training facilities and participate in them."
The Bulldogs' head of physical conditioning Bill Davoren said the players were set to benefit from cardiovascular training at high altitude, but would mainly focus on strength and development during their stay.
"I've spent a significant amount of time there with triathlon, as altitude training is a significant part of the sport's preparation," he said.
"We're actually not spending a lot of time in altitude; we're really only there for one day and it's mainly for the hike that we're going on there.
"We'll continue with the training in all the areas that we've been doing back here, so again there will be an emphasis on weight training and an emphasis on speed and lateral movement as well as aerobic endurance conditioning.
"It's not per se an altitude training trip we're going on; it's a concentration on learning and development trip as well as training, and the altitude is a very minimal component."
For players like midfielder Dylan Addison, the trip is just another example of how far the Bulldogs have come since he was drafted in 2005.
"Even in my time, things have changed. They must have changed ten-fold for someone like Brad Johnson," Addison said.
"I was lucky enough to spend a year in the old gym, and now I'm in the new place and it's great.
"It gives us some confidence we can now go somewhere like Arizona. The fundraising the club has done for this trip is awesome.
"It will be a tough week but it will be a nice change up from running around Whitten Oval. We're really excited."
