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THE South Sydney Rabbitohs are joining forces with the Gold Coast Suns AFL outfit and will fly star trio Adam Reynolds, Luke Keary and Dylan Walker to the US for two-week high altitude training camp in November.
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In a cutting-edge development previously explored by AFL clubs Collingwood, Carlton, Brisbane and Gold Coast, the Rabbitohs trio will travel 12,500kms to the famous Northern Arizona University camp in Flagstaff, Arizona.
There, the Bunnies will spend 12 days training at a minimum of 7000m above sea level, where the Suns have previously utilised high altitude training techniques including climbing the Grand Canyon and Mt Humphreys, complete with a 12,500m summit.
The conditions can vary from being warm and sunny to snowing with high winds, with players lactic acid thresholds thought to be significantly improved under the duress.
Designed to increase individuals' red blood cell counts due to the lower oxygen levels, high altitude training is believed to increase elite athletes oxygen carrying capacity and aerobic fitness.
Souths trio Reynolds, Keary and Walker will spend 12-days training alongside the entire Gold Coast Suns AFL playing roster in Arizona, where the activities vary from running repeat 400m sprints to strength training in the state-of-the-art $106 million facility.
South Sydney coach Michael Maguire and high performance manager Troy Thomson will also travel to the US for part of the camp, with the Rabbitohs group then set for a two-day stopover at the University of California in Los Angeles for more training on the way home to Sydney.
Maguire confirmed if the trip was a success, the Rabbitohs were hopeful of taking their entire NRL roster to Arizona at the same time next year for a specialised pre-season high altitude camp.
"The AFL have obviously been doing it for a long time and we've got an altitude chamber at Redfern, so we're hoping to get the benefits of all the latest training techniques," Maguire said.
"I first became aware of it through Mick Malthouse when he was at Collingwood and obviously a number of AFL clubs have been utilising this type of altitude training for some time.
"One thing for us is if we can get the results we're looking for, we'd like to look at taking the entire team over to do the same training in another 12 months' time. We've looked at the way the AFL clubs do it and what we'd like to try and do is get some of our top sponsors involved in the trip.
"From their point of view, they would gain a first-hand look at what it's like training with an elite sports team in a variety of challenging conditions in an elite camp overseas.
"And from our point of view we would get all the elite benefits of a high altitude training camp."
Melbourne Storm halfback and Dally M Medallist Cooper Cronk made the same trip to Flagstaff with the Brisbane Lions in the off-season last November and strongly endorsed the benefits of the training.
The Rabbitohs' US fact finding expedition will commence at the start of the club's pre-season training in November and the trip includes an additional two days of training at UCLA on the way back to Sydney.
On the subject of South Sydney's meltdown against Manly in the grand final qualifier, Maguire said the loss continued to be a sore point.
"Without a doubt we will grow from that, we'll learn a lot of big lessons out of that experience," Maguire said.
"It was definitely an opportunity gone and it was felt pretty hard right throughout the group for sometime afterwards."
