O’Bree said the real value of the recent altitude work wouldn’t show until midway through the 2008 season.
The Magpies have spent the best part of the last month in South Africa and Dubai, continuing a history of completing off-season sessions in oxygen-deficient areas.
The club spent a fortnight in Arizona in USA in October/November 2005, training at a facility over 2100m above sea level.
O’Bree said there was a marked difference between this year’s South African experience and the plush surrounds of the elite training facility at Northern Arizona University on that earlier trip.
“It was really good (but) we’re appreciating training at a low attitude again,” he said with a laugh.
“We stayed at a little town (Potchefstroom) and our accommodation – well, before we left we knew it wasn’t going to be that flash.
“It was a bit of an eye-opener for all the boys, at training, going around to the shanty towns.”
But the 192-gamer for the Pies said it was a fantastic chance for the team to bond as well as learn.
“It was really good for the boys and also to break up pre-season and get a bit of fitness out of it,” he said.
“We’ve got a young group and all the young guys get along real well, as do the old guys.
“But it is good because the more time you spend with each other, the more you get to know each other. These sort of camps are like that.”
And while the team may well be grateful to be back down to where the air is easily breathable, O’Bree said the payback of the short-term camp would be long-term for the club, especially given the facilities that already exist at their high-tech training base at home.
“Definitely, it has a lot of benefit, but it’s probably not until a couple of months down the track that you actually notice that it has kicked in. But with the altitude room that we’ve got at the Lexus Centre, this gives us a base that we can keep topping up when we get back home.”
