Calgary, Canada – Canada’s Alpine Ski Teams have begun training here in Calgary for the 2010-11 World Cup season in the build-up to the the 2011 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships.nThe men’s and women’s teams began last week with fitness testing and dryland training in preparation for their return to on-snow training in the southern hemisphere this summer.

“This is basically the first training camp of the four years ahead of us. There will be a lot of different things happening that will most definitely interest the athletes. The guys went through four years of intense preparation focused on the 2010 Olympic Winter Games and now that process starts over again,” said Alpine Canada Alpin (ACA) Director of Sports Science, Matt Price, who ran the training camp for the men’s team.

“I’m impressed with the team’s work ethic and commitment to training,” said ACA Conditioning Coach Matt Jordan, who is working with the women’s team. “We are introducing a few new activities into the program such as boxing, which allow us to accomplish the training objective while keeping them moving in a variety of ways.”

The training camp opened up with fitness testing before the high performance workouts began. New exercises like martial arts and yoga were also a part of the season’s first training camp.

“These are pretty intense, it’s definitely fun to get out of the gym a little bit. And when you get back to the regular gym workout you are more motivated and work a little harder,” said reigning Nor-Am Cup men’s overall champ Dustin Cook, of Lac Sainte Marie, Quebec.

“It’s something new, we don’t have a lot of experience in this,” said 2010 Olympian Tyler Nella, of Toronto, Ontario, after a martial arts workout last Thursday. “So you just go as hard as you can and try to get the best workout that you can. I think we’ve all had a lot of fun with it and got a lot out of it, doing movements that we don’t normally do.”

The 2010-11 World Cup ski season gets underway in Sölden, Austria in October, with the men’s and women’s speed seasons getting underway in Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada, in November and December. The upcoming season is also highlighted by the 2011 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in Garmisch-Partenkirken, Germany, next February.