High Altitude and Sport
Sports Centers – Recovery/Regeneration – Training Techniques
Training Techniques
Important Points
Regeneration – Recovery
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High Altitude and Sport. Benefits of training at altitude
How sports performance is influenced by training at high altitudes:
- It facilitates more efficient oxygen perfusion distribution to muscles.
- It brings users to the highest fitness levels very quickly.
- Provides very fast adaptation of newly transferred athletes to the team.
- It provides mental and physical performance increase.
- It provides more effective retention of oxygen in cells.
- Compared to normal, the body’s metabolic rate is 30% higher throughout the whole body, especially in cell and muscle tissue.
- It has been proven to provide rapid healing of joints and tissues after injuries/ surgeries, compared to normal rehabilitation conditions.
- Provides an opportunity to maintain fitness when immobilised due to surgery, illness, etc.
- It leaves a long-term lasting effect on the general metabolism and fitness form after the training.
High Altitude Training is a training method that improves and develops numerous physiological characteristics in the human body, such as the respiratory, cardiovascular and muscular systems. This method has gained more popularity with the advancement of sports science, sports medicine and medical data, which allowed to prove its benefits and effectiveness. Training at high altitude has many positive effects on the body. For example, athletes who train at high altitude rapidly increase their red blood cell count, oxygen carrying capacity, endurance, strength, and performance levels. In addition, training at high altitude strengthens the immune system, lowers blood pressure and protects heart health. High Altitude Training is preferred by many athletes, performance specialists and sports physicians, who use it to enhance their fitness and health.
High Altitude Training Techniques
The exposure to high altitude environment imposes performance limitations on athletes. To overcome these challenges, various sports have designed training processes that use natural hypoxia as an extra stimulus for muscle adaptation, especially in cyclic endurance sports. Moreover, the optimal combinations of altitude and training intensity have been verified, and artificial hypoxia techniques have been developed to enhance the results of competitive muscular work and improve the outcomes in competitions.
As a result, there are different training methods of High Altitude training depending on the purpose and goal. In all methods it is always better to set the optimum altitude level according to the oxygen saturation values (Spo2), which provides the most accurate and best personalised results.
High altitude sessions are generally applied with 4 different methods.
⇑ Live High – ⇓ Train Low
Sleeping at altitude and training at sea level | LH – TL
You can boost your hypoxic respiratory response, NA+/K+ ATPase, and muscle buffer capacity, along with other advantages, by training for less than 3 weeks.
You need to train for a minimum of four weeks to increase your EPO levels. With the High Altitude Sleep/ Presence Method, you do sessions four or five times a week. Shorter periods are enough if you aim for other effects than blood value improvement.
⇑ Live High – ⇑ Train High
Sleeping and training at altitude | LH – TH
These simulation sessions are carried out practised by sleeping in your altitude chamber at night and then training in a high altitude training room. A natural way is to go to camps at high altitudes, like some football clubs do. But this way may have drawbacks, such as longer acclimatization due to pressure problems, not enough time to get the best results and costs.
A way to maximise exposure to high altitude is the “Live at Altitude, Train at Altitude” method. This method will also improve performance at high altitudes because the body fully adapts to living with less oxygen and acclimatises to the altitude environment.
This protocol requires a one-week adjustment period, after which the optimal values are achieved in 3-6 weeks.
This method involves starting the interval training periods with shorter duration than usual and extending them progressively. Moreover, the intervals should have longer breaks than normal and be also reduced slowly / gradually.
⇓ Live Low – ⇑ Train High
Sleeping at sea level and training at altitude | LL – TH
In modern sports science and medicine, the use of high altitude during training (LL-TH) has become a very important and common practice.
It enables athletes to benefit from the benefits of high altitude with altitude training rooms while maintaining their social life in club facilities or at home.
LL – TH Technique for Athletes
In this protocol, the session should be increased to 1 / 1.5 hour periods and gradually reach low, medium and high altitudes. The desired values are maximised with 3 – 5 training sessions per week for approximately 3 weeks.
⇑ – ⇓ Intermittent Hypoxic Training / Exposure
Sleep and training at altitude (being in an altitude environment) alternating with sleep and training at sea level | IHT – IHE
Alternating Hypoxic Training (Intermittent Hypoxic Practice) consists of alternating living and training at high altitudes with living and training at sea level without having to go to altitude camps for altitude effect.
Training in a specific preparation period – Intermittent hypoxia training (IHT)
Intermittent hypoxia training is applied 2-3 times a week with active training sessions at altitude for 1 – 1.5 hours per session with equipment such as treadmills, exercise bikes, etc. In addition, the effects of IHT can be enriched by applying IHE (intermittent hypoxia exposure) for three hours, 4-5 times a week. This is one of the highly effective and time-efficient ways to enhance the effects for improving athletic performance and acclimatisation to altitude.
Intermittent Hypoxic Exposure (IHE)
Simply being in a low-oxygen environment or doing mild exercise is can also enough to benefit from the system. Whether to be active or passive in the altitude chamber, reading a book or training, depends on the goal of the program and the user’s overall health. Altitude sessions can be repeated every 1-2 weeks.
Important Points (valid for all methods)
- Altitude level is a crucial factor that affects the accuracy and quality of the results obtained from high-altitude systems. Therefore, individuals need to adjust their altitude level according to their oxygen saturation (Spo2) and heart rate values, which can be measured by a SPO2 meter during training or exercise.
- High Altitude and Sports Systems with Hypoxia have been utilized for a long time to facilitate the adaptation of sportsmen, athletes and climbers to high altitude conditions.
- High altitude systems are not only beneficial for professional athletes, but also for individuals, special forces soldiers, cage fighters, and chronic disease patients.
- This system has been proven to be effective in mitigating and relieving the symptoms of disease, enhancing general health, boosting endurance, improving performance and speeding up post-injury recovery.
- Training or living at high altitude can offer advantages for everyone. However, different altitude methods are required for different purposes and goals. For instance, the climbing or training techniques for preparing for a triathlon or cycling race may differ from the altitude applications for losing weight or reducing COPD / Asthma attacks.
- In cases where general and mild applications are not sufficient and a professional approach is needed, it is advisable to conduct the applications under the guidance of a physician.
- We can implement the high altitude and sports room system in any location you prefer. You can apply the high altitude system in a room of your house, in your bedroom or even in your entire house. We can also convert the sports rooms in your sports facility, the dormitories (guest house rooms) where your club’s athletes reside, and even all of your existing buildings into altitude training rooms or altitude living spaces.
High Altitude and Regeneration / Recovery
As well as their benefits in sports, high altitude applications are also widely used for fast recovery. Especially in sports clubs which competition preparation is very important, its use is recommended for a number of its regeneration and recovery benefits.
When returning to normal altitude after the session:
- It reduces fatigue in all kinds of physical activity, and increases mental and physical performance compared to usual levels.
- It increases the level of attention and focus before the next competition, thus the athlete can handle the physical and mental demands better and use them more effectively and under control during the competition.
- Provides rapid recovery from post-match fatigue symptoms due to lactic acid.
- It strengthens athletes metabolically against all kinds of diseases and makes their bodies more resistant.
- It is used to reduce the effects of insomnia that the team may experience due to travelling fatigue or excitement before the match. 1 hour of sleep in the altitude room is equivalent to 8 hours of sleep. In this way, it minimises the influence of time differences at the venue of the competition.
- It supports alternative treatments such as PRP in tissue, spinal cord and joint injuries in athletes, measurably accelerating recovery while maintaining current level of fitness.
- It shortens the recovery period of the athlete in cases such as after injury or surgery that require more advanced treatment.
- Its contribution to weight control and energy balance is quite high with its metabolism acceleration and the feeling of satiety it creates.