The basketball team claimed the gym, the Alpine ski team the loft above it. That left the Armstrong Nordic ski team with the locker hallway for practice on a rainy afternoon this past week.
Controlled chaos ensued. About 80 skiers flanked the lockers and performed push-ups, situps, lunges and other body weight exercises. After 30 seconds, they rotated to the next exercise.
"We kind of go where we can find a spot," longtime coach Steve Hopke said.
"We've got 80 kids and 30 of them have never done it before."
The key, he said, is ensuring they do the exercises correctly.
Across the metro area, Nordic teams are preparing for the snow with dry land routines that include strength training, running, roller skiing and other exercises that mimic skiing motions.
Hopke said his team does two to three weeks of dryland training each year and would ideally start skiing around Thanksgiving. That doesn't always happen, however.
"Ideally we'd like to have snow right now," Wayzata captain Michaela Keller-Miller said. "Then we would just do strength training on top of it."