STRANGE things happen in the name of football. Like four men locking themselves in a small, heated room for an hour at a time, riding exercise bikes, sweating buckets, wondering which water bottle belongs to whom.

The Western Bulldogs began training for their so-far, so-good season at Victoria University on October 15, earlier than any of their contemporaries. They have been back there three times a week for the past month, turning the pedals with an eye to their annual mid-winter mission in Darwin, against Port Adelaide this Saturday night.

A trip to the Territory is nothing new to the Dogs; forward Robert Murphy reckoned he has played there "six or seven times now and, without being too corny, in a football sense, it feels like a home away from home". Their Darwin-specific training, under the eye of sports scientist Dr Rob Aughey, is aimed at making it even more homely.

The Vic Uni heat chamber is heated to 31 degrees with 60% humidity (it was 25-27 degrees and about 65% humidity in Darwin for last year's game). Football being an evolving pursuit, the Dogs are using it from a month leading up to the clash, compared with a fortnight last year, which Aughey believes will increase the reward.

"That's the thing with science — last year's answer won't be this year's answer," he said. "It's one of the biggest challenges we've got environmentally for the year — not so much the absolute temperature and humidity in Darwin, but the fact we're going from Melbourne to Darwin, from playing in 16-to-17 degrees, and all of a sudden playing in 25-plus."

Recent British findings involving soccer players have been incorporated, along with the results of a just-completed two-year AFL investigation into player responses in the heat. "There's enough in the data that we've been able to collect to guarantee that this is going to give us a small edge," Aughey said.

It is estimated that players lose 3% of their body weight in a Darwin match — more than three kilograms for the likes of Brian Lake and Ben Hudson. Aughey said the chamber's benefits were myriad, and it was "the longer-term adaptations that we're after that enhance our ability to perform at a high intensity, and they take longer than one or two weeks".

Murphy thinks any leg-up in a competition is worthwhile, "and with my Irish blood, I need all the help I can get up there". That said, he wondered if more was made of "playing away" than necessary. "You'd like to think you can win anywhere."

He has not felt any effect — ill or otherwise — in the three games the Dogs have played since the heat chamber sessions began. Winning each of them has helped, and Murphy said there was excitement among the group.

"There's still some improvements, and I think that's probably the most exciting thing. It'd be nice to lock this one away, enjoy the break and head into the next part of the year."

Murphy is one of eight key Bulldogs to commit to new contracts with the club, including Ryan Griffen, Daniel Giansiracusa and Daniel Cross, and the sense is building of something special on the horizon. "The group we've got at the moment … there's a big chunk who are in the same boat and we think we can challenge in the next few years, definitely.

"There's an unspoken thing that we think we've got a pretty good group and we'd like to stay together."