TWO OF Sydney's best AFLW players spent their summer on a quest to take their game to the next level, traveling to America to train with National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB) experts in an attempt to get even faster.

Former No.1 draft pick Montana Ham and her Sydney skipper Lucy McEvoy completed a two-week intensive NFL-style training camp with strength and conditioning coaches from the Arizona Cardinals and MLB team Boston Red Sox.

“I wanted to do an America trip for ages and Mon and I are two peas in a pod, so when I mentioned it, she was like, 'Yeah, let's do it',” McEvoy said.

“So it was just us two for like four or five weeks. We travelled to a few different places and then had the training camp in the middle, which was kind of the main reason we went.”

The two attended Exos, a renowned sports performance centre that works with some of America’s best athletes.

“There'd been a fair few other men's and women's (AFL) players that had gone and done it (the camp). The Exos facilities are unreal,” McEvoy said.

“We got to see a lot of the guys that are preparing for the NFL draft. So a lot of the college guys, and I love my college football, NFL, and watching them up close, some of them are enormous.

“You can only imagine how big they are, but they move so well for their size. It's wild. The amount of weight that they lift in the gym is just unheard of. They've made us look like we're picking up two-and-a-half kilo weights.”

McEvoy and Ham completed three sessions a day four times a week. The sessions included a field component focused on speed and change of direction, a gym lift and a football skills session.

“They've got everything you can imagine that you could need as an athlete,” McEvoy said.

“They really specialise in sprint mechanics, agility type stuff. And then obviously like your gym work as well, but stuff that you wouldn't necessarily get to do in pre-season in AFLW.

“Because we have such a large group in (an AFLW) pre-season, it's so hard to do this kind of individual work. So to be able to drill down in those spaces was really cool and we learned so much.

With the speed of the W game increasing rapidly, McEvoy knew this was an area she wanted to improve.

“I reckon it has (made me faster),” McEvoy said.

“It provided me with little tips and tricks and cues that I've been able to use in our sessions that we're doing back at the Swans. Being able to implement just some of the stuff that we learnt will hopefully make me less slow, I'll say.”

McEvoy explains that the coaches at the camp were impressed with Ham’s pace. Ham's speed was highlighted in her superb running goal that won Goal of the Year in 2025.

“Yeah, Mon’s lightning quick. She didn't need to get any faster,” McEvoy joked.

“They were pretty impressed with her speed, that's for sure. But there were still things that she could work on. It was quite interesting. We learnt a hell of a lot.”

Outside of the camp, the two did some sightseeing, including a Christmas Day trip to Disneyland and New Year's Eve in Las Vegas.

“We spent Christmas in Disneyland, which was an absolute crack up. We are such kids in that sense, but we loved it,” McEvoy said.

“And then we went to L.A. and did a few of the sports: An NFL game, NBA, the real touristy things, the Hollywood sign and all of that.

“Then from there we went to Vegas for New Year's Eve. Safe to say that it was the best New Year's Eve I've ever had.”