Power of Oxygen 5

Hypoxic Training: Options and Outcomes for Performance Enhancement
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Hypoxic training, also known as altitude training, involves exercising in environments with a lower oxygen concentration than at sea level. This type of training can significantly impact athletic performance, particularly for endurance athletes, by inducing various physiological adaptations that improve oxygen delivery and utilization in the body, like optimizing your factory's critical resource availability and efficiency to maximize output.
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Let's delve into the science behind hypoxic training, its different types, its application and alternatives with the help of subject matter expert Frederic DeVreese from Olympeak

Impact of Hypoxic Training

Hypoxic training stimulates adaptations in the body that can enhance endurance performance. Key impacts include:

• Increased Red Blood Cell Production: The kidneys respond to lower oxygen levels by producing more erythropoietin (EPO), which stimulates the production of red blood cells. This increases the blood's oxygen-carrying capacity.
• Improved Oxygen Utilization: Muscles adapt to use oxygen more efficiently, enhancing mitochondrial efficiency and increasing capillarization (the formation of small blood vessels) in the muscles.
• Enhanced Metabolic Efficiency: There's an increase in the muscles' ability to metabolize glucose anaerobically (without oxygen), which is beneficial during high-intensity efforts.

High Altitude Training Formats

Real Altitude training works because, although the air contains the same percentage of oxygen, due to the lower air pressure, all molecules are spread further apart, which means that with the same volume inhaled, the amount of oxygen received is lower (edit April 5th, 2024).
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Let’s compare the 3 main altitude training formats:

• Live High – Train Low: ​This allows for maximum physiological adaptations, while still being able to train at maximum intensity. This works great for athletes who want to combine aerobic capacity without compromising intensity. This is considered by far the most beneficial strategy.
• Live Low – Train High: This maximizes aerobic capacity and efficiency at altitude, with a positive effect on VO2max. This is often used to prepare for competition at high altitude or for athletes in rehab that want to mimic anaerobic effects at lower intensities (also see BFR). The risk here is that your submaximal training at altitude will cause you to reduce maximum power.
• Live High – Train High: ​This maximizes red blood cell count and hemoglobin, enhancing endurance performance and oxygen utilization efficiency, but at the cost of maximum intensity. There are no real cost-effective alternatives.

Alternatives to high altitude travel training

Realistically, amateur endurance athletes don’t have the time or the budget to travel to high altitude training camps, so here are some great cost-effective shortcuts:


1. Hypobaric Chambers:​

You can sleep in a pressurized chamber where the air pressure and oxygen level can be controlled to simulate different altitudes. This is the opposite as to what divers use for decompression. This very expensive solution provides hypoxic benefits at night, while you can still workout at your maximum during the day. This is a cost-effective way to simulate Live High – train low format.

2. Normobaric Hypoxia: (edit 29/02/2024)

To mimic the “live low-train high” format, you can use oxygen masks during workouts. The benefit of the train high format is a shorter, high intensity hypoxic condition which has lower impact on fatigue or sleep. Onthe other hand, you can also copy the "live high-train low" format by sleeping in normbaric tents to breathe oxygen-reduced air at sea level during the night. 

3. Nasal Breathing During Exercise

Nasal breathing during exercise results in slower, deeper breaths, which creates a mild hypoxic condition increasing the CO2 level in your blood. This enables more efficient release of oxygen from hemoglobin to the muscles (see Bohr Effect).  

4.Breath holding

Breath-holding is a technique that induces hypoxia and hypercapnia. Five breath holds (25 seconds plus), can yield a remarkable 24% increase in natural EPO concentration, three hours post-breath-holding, which results in the increase of red blood cells 3-4 days after, thus enhancing the oxygen-carrying capacity.

5.High Intensity Training

High-intensity workouts in Zones 4 and 5 simulate hypoxic training benefits by inducing internal metabolic stress. This stress enhances cardiovascular and muscular efficiency, and improves lactate threshold and VO2 max, thereby augmenting the body's oxygen transport and utilization capabilities. Key is to balance this out (20%) with base Zone 2 (80%), aerobic training for optimal effectiveness.

6.Blood Flow Restriction Training for Rehabilitation

Blood flow restriction (BFR) training during rehabilitation, especially after musculoskeletal injuries, mimics muscular hypoxic conditions by limiting oxygen flow to muscles. This technique fosters adaptations that improve oxygen use efficiency, allowing for strength gains through low-intensity exercises by simulating the effects of high-intensity training.

7. Cross adaptations through heat training (*Added 22/02/2024)

"Whilst heat and altitude training are not the same in a literal sense, the cross-adaptations elicited by a sensible exercise protocol in heat are favorable to performance in a hypoxic environment (altitude)." Basically, the heat shock response from heat exposure during training provides a similar response as hypoxia training. What is called "acclimatory homeostasis": includes: reduced heart rates, higher oxygen saturation levels, increased cardiac output, and elevated baseline levels of cytoprotective proteins like HSP72

Conclusion

Hypoxic training, through its various forms, leverages the body's adaptive responses to low-oxygen environments to enhance endurance performance at sea-level. Additionally, workarounds like hypobaric chambers, normobaric hypoxia, nasal breathing and intensity training can simulate some benefits of altitude training, making it a valuable tool for athletes unable to train at altitude.

Don't forget. It is the small daily steps that turn into positive habits, patterns, and beliefs ingrained in body and mind. Enjoy the journey!

BONUS TIP from Coach Glenn

Although my recommended option is to sleep in a normobaric chamber, a less expensive way to force yourself into moderate hypoxia conditions during training, is by shifting breathing cycles to a lower gear (as we discussed in part 4 of our oxygen series). For instance, where you normally breathe 4 in – 3 out in a Zone 2 pace, you could try to breath 5 in - 4 out to change your breathing pattern from 25 times per minute, to 20 times per minute, creating a form of normobaric hypoxia, 20% less oxygen per minute. Advanced runners can combine this with nose breathing to further strengthen their CO2 tolerance and their diaphragm.

Oxygen Series:

• The Power of Oxygen(24/1/2024)
• Optimal Breathing (31/1/2024)
• Stress Relief and Focus (9/2/2024)
• Rhythmic Breathing Patterns (14/2/2024)
• Hypoxic Training, Formats and Benefits (21/2/2024)
• Conclusion: Executive Wellbeing (28/2/2024)