On the 1996 Olympic Video games in Atlanta, American distance runners earned a complete of zero medals in entrance of their house followers. Twenty years later, in Rio, they picked up seven medals in occasions between 800 meters and the marathon. What modified?
There are many theories, together with modifications in coaching philosophy, the rise of sponsored all-star coaching teams, and the dissemination of information on the Web. However a brand new paper within the Worldwide Journal of Sports activities Physiology and Efficiency argues that sports activities science additionally performed a task. Primarily no American runners used altitude coaching to organize for Atlanta. Then, in 1997, Ben Levine and James Stray-Gundersen printed a paper introducing the idea of “dwell excessive, prepare low” (LHTL) altitude coaching. By 2016, each single one of many American medalists was utilizing this strategy.
LHTL includes spending as a lot time as doable in skinny air (both within the mountains or in simulated altitude chambers) in an effort to set off the manufacturing of hemoglobin-rich crimson blood cells to ferry oxygen to the muscular tissues, but in addition descending frequently to decrease altitudes for key coaching periods so as to have the ability to run quick in oxygen-rich air. The brand new paper is by a gaggle led by Olivier Girard of the College of Western Australia. Levine is among the co-authors, together with fellow altitude coaching pioneers Robert Chapman and Randy Wilber. It’s devoted to Stray-Gundersen, who handed away final fall. To toast the success of a quarter-century of LHTL coaching, they’ve distilled ten key classes based mostly on a mixture of analysis and sensible expertise working with elite athletes.
Earlier than I get to these ten classes, I ought to notice that not everyone seems to be as gung-ho about LHTL as its originators. Again in 2020, I wrote an article summing up the skeptical view about why altitude coaching may sound good in idea and never work in follow. There are additionally long-running debates about why some individuals appear to answer altitude coaching and others don’t. And certainly, research like this one, printed final month, preserve showing: 4 weeks of LHTL coaching boosted hemoglobin ranges in elite Finnish cross-country skiers, however didn’t enhance efficiency.
One factor everybody agrees on is that merely shopping for a airplane ticket or an altitude tent doesn’t assure that you simply’ll get quicker. So with that in thoughts, right here’s my tackle Girard et al.’s ten classes.
1. The dose issues
The altitude candy spot is comparatively slender, between about 5,900 and 9,800 ft (1,800 to three,000 meters) above sea stage. Go increased, and also you’ll have hassle sleeping and recovering from exercises; keep decrease, and also you gained’t set off vital variations. You want to accumulate at the very least 200, and ideally greater than 300 hours—a few weeks, principally—at altitude to see advantages.
2. Nobody actually is aware of who will reply and who gained’t
As I mentioned on this earlier article, there are many theories about methods to establish non-responders, however no definitive solutions. Ever optimistic, the authors recommend that some individuals could also be sluggish responders moderately than non-responders. The important thing sensible level is that (in case you occur to have a sports activities science crew at your disposal) it is best to measure your response so you realize whether or not altitude coaching helps you or not.
3. Good iron shops are a prerequisite
To make crimson blood cells, you want iron. Which means there’s no level in heading to altitude in case your iron ranges are low. The ferritin thresholds the authors recommend are at the very least 20 micrograms per liter for ladies, and at the very least 30 for males. Some specialists recommend that even those that exceed these thresholds ought to take iron dietary supplements whereas they’re at altitude.
4. Regulate your coaching
Dwelling at altitude is a stress in your physique, so you possibly can’t simply add that stress to your normal coaching load with out penalties. That sometimes means dialing again coaching earlier than heading to altitude, and lowering coaching quantity by as a lot as 25 % in your first week at altitude.
5. Getting sick or overtrained will negate the advantages
Along with the added coaching stress, it’s tougher to sleep at altitude, and dehydration occurs rapidly within the dry air. In consequence, it’s necessary to pay shut consideration to the way you’re recovering, how properly you’re sleeping, and the way onerous the coaching feels. When unsure, again off.
6. Timing is every part
On the query of when to plan an altitude block relative to your aim race, Girard and his colleagues write, “each practitioner has an opinion.” There’s a basic sense that racing within the first week after coming down from altitude is nice, the second week is dangerous as your physique readapts to sea stage, and then you definitely get one other candy spot from the third to fifth week. However nobody is basically positive, and there could also be a lot of particular person variation. One level of consensus: you most likely want a number of days of simple coaching, both within the closing days of the altitude block or instantly after, to recuperate from the added stress of altitude coaching.
7. Actual and simulated altitude each work
The general physique of analysis suggests you can get comparable boosts from utilizing an altitude tent or chamber as from going to the mountains. It’s not simple, although. You want to spend at the very least 12 to 14 hours a day within the altitude room to set off significant variations, which can drive you nuts or at the very least pressure you to be far more sedentary than you’d like.
8. There’s no gold medal for finest blood take a look at
That is the purpose that altitude coaching skeptics harp on. Altitude coaching reliably boosts crimson blood cell ranges (on common, at the very least) and triggers different physiological variations. However that doesn’t at all times translate into higher race performances. That hole could also be a results of not giving your self an opportunity to recuperate from the coaching fatigue accrued in the course of the altitude camp. Or there could also be different explanations, as but undiscovered.
9. It really works for crew sports activities and racket sports activities too
Historically, altitude coaching was for endurance athletes. However extra lately, different sports activities like tennis and soccer have began utilizing it, and there’s proof that it helps with repeated dash efficiency. Apparently, since these athletes often begin with decrease hemoglobin ranges than endurance athletes, they could even get advantages from shorter camps of lower than two weeks.
10. Warmth and high-altitude sprints may assist
There are numerous add-ons that may make LHTL coaching much more efficient. As a substitute of doing all of your intense coaching at low altitude, all-out sprints at excessive altitude may be efficient for repeated-sprint efficiency in team-sport athletes. A bout of warmth coaching may improve your plasma quantity (the a part of your blood that doesn’t embrace crimson blood cells) earlier than heading to altitude (the place you’ll produce extra crimson blood cells), probably producing an even bigger general impact. There are loads of “mights” in there, however these are areas of lively analysis.
What you make of all these “classes” most likely is dependent upon whether or not you’re a glass-half-empty or a glass-half-full particular person. To Girard and his colleagues, the LHTL strategy to altitude coaching has been a smashing success, as evidenced by all these Olympic medals, they usually’re sharing all these nuances to assist different individuals do it proper. To skeptics, all these caveats are exactly why so many topics in so many research don’t get any quicker than these within the management group doing sea-level coaching camps. On steadiness, the most secure conclusion is that there’s no free lunch. Getting altitude coaching proper takes loads of onerous work, loads of cautious planning, and a bit of luck—which, for endurance athletes, is simply the best way we prefer it.
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