Altitude training revisited: the physiological factors in altitude training and how they affect human performance.

Altitude is a fascinating concept. Scientists have never stopped studying the people who live over 2,500m above sea level.

What physiological adaptations allow them to live in such hypoxic conditions, and what happens when they are transported to sea-level conditions? Do their special adaptations atrophy? How do these factors influence human performance?

Altitude raises many questions and creates many misunderstandings. A trip to Denver, CO, for example, takes one up to 1,700m above sea level. Though 1,700m hardly represents an extreme change, even for sea-level residents, most people claim that such heights affect their breathing.

It is questionable. Unless the individual is involved in heavy aerobic endurance work (not downhill skiing!), altitude should have little effect.

Point: There is no skiing in Denver. The skiing is done in the resort cities like Aspen, Vail, and Steamboat. Since these areas go over 2,000m they could create altitude problems. People who climb, ski, run, and hike (endurance events) all claim that they benefit from such altitude training. You have to wonder.

And how about running? The track world became fascinated with altitude training in the year or two before the 1967 Olympics in Mexico City. The Olympics had never been held at an altitude over 2,000m, and the performances of the African runners from mountainous regions (such as Kipchoge Keino of Kenya, who won the 1,500m run) aroused a great deal of scientific curiosity about altitude and the training for it.

In fact, altitude training became apart of the annual training cycles of middle- and long-distance runners.

What have been the research findings since 1968? Will it affect the training for the Olympics in sea-level Atlanta? Is there anything out there that can be of use to high school coaches?

A couple of months ago, I spent some time with Dr. Jim Stray Gunderson and Dr. Benjamin Levine at their human performance laboratory in Dallas. Over the past two years, the two scientists have been assembling the definitive research on altitude and its effect on athletic performance.

Though they concluded their research last August, they still haven't published the results. But they did clue me into some of their preliminary findings.

The crux of their research lies in their answer to a question: "What is the most effective form of altitude training?" Four possible scenarios lend themselves to study:

1. Live High & Train High (LH-TH)

2. Live Low & Train Low (LL-TL)

3. Live High & Train Low (LH-TL)

4. Live Low & Train High (LL-TH)

By "Low," they mean training 1,200m or less above sea level, and by "High," they mean training at 2,500m or higher. Denver, for example, is neither High nor Low, but an intermediate altitude of 1,700m, which is considered insignificant.

Gunderson's and Levine's six-year research was done in two general geographic living and training locations: "H-H" (Park City, UT, 2,800m above sea level) and "L-L" (San Diego, CA, sea level). "L-H" meant living in San Diego and training daily in an altitude chamber, while "H-L" meant living in Park City and training daily in Salt Lake City (1,200m).

The testing pool consisted of 52 twenty-year-old track athletes from eastern colleges, who were divided into four even groups. The measurement tool took the form of V[O.sub.2] maximum and 5,000m time trials held before and after a four-week training camp.

The races were run in Dallas, where none of the participants either live or trained, and the data were tabulated over a six-year period.

BASIC PREMISES TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT:

1 All athletes benefit from any type of training camp, whether at high altitude or anywhere else. It is group dynamics.

2 Supervised training anywhere will enhance performance.

3 Red blood cell mass will not increase without supplements of elemental iron.

4 It takes years to fully increase red cell mass while acclimating to high altitudes.

5 Hypoxic training is not as fast as training at sea level.

6 At high altitudes, training must have less volume and less intensity because of less [0.sub.2]. In this study, all four groups did exactly the same amount of training.

7 A lactate paradox applies: the lesser the lactate build-up, the higher you go, even though there is less [0.sub.2].

The goal of altitude training is to build greater red blood cell mass and more hemoglobin to grab the limited diffused [0.sub.2] molecules.

Question: Is the training as good as can be done at sea level? The answer is no.

At rest, at an altitude of up to 4,000m, the blood can be saturated with [0.sub.2], but not so under stress.

Even at 2,500m, it is difficult to come close to supplying enough [0.sub.2] during training stress.

At sea level, the training can be more intense and the recovery shorter. Certainly, the racing will be faster at sea level for events over 1,500m.

PRELIMINARY SUMMARY

When athletes train at a higher altitude, they must increase their iron. Living high and training low markedly increases the performance at sea level. Geographically, it means living in the coolness of the mountains.

Although the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta will be contested at sea level, the temperatures will be in the 38 degree Celsius range and the humidity will be 100%, hardly as felicitous as the climatic conditions in the mountains.

Athletes training for the Olympics should look at this pragmatically, not simply head for the mountains for a lengthy stay.

What can all this mean for high school coaches in a state such as Minnesota?

It would mean encouraging iron supplementation, creating a training camp atmosphere to start the season, and to always train for a model race situation.

These suggestions may appear to be simple commonsense, but that is what prudent training is based upon. If, at altitude, your runners train at 6-min. pace because of [0.sub.2] conditions, they are programming their neuromuscular system to run/race at 6-min. pace.

The same athletes could probably handle 5:30 training pace at sea level - thus develop their neuromuscular system to run/race at 5:30 pace.

What would you, as a coach, prefer? At altitude, the resting heart rate rises and the maximal heart recovery rate decreases. Although the range between these two rates is narrower at altitude, the recovery rate to normal remains slower.

The premise in training track athletes is quite simple: to enable them to move from Point A to Point B in the shortest amount of time, no matter how far they run.

RELATED ARTICLE: RESULTS FROM THE 5000M TIME TRIALS:

LIVE HIGH-TRAIN LOW athletes improved by an average of 10 sec. The athletes living in Park City had to stay there except for the daily van trip down to Salt Lake City for training. Salt Lake City is quite warm in the summer.

LIVE LOW, TRAIN LOW (control group) athletes improved by less than 5 sec.

LIVE LOW, TRAIN HIGH athletes got worse even though their V[O.sub.2] increased. The probable explanation was that after training in the coolness of the altitude chamber, the Dallas times in August were brutal.

LIVE HIGH-TRAIN HIGH athletes got slightly worse, although they improved in the second time trials, which were done one week after the first trial. Again, the Dallas weather probably affected the results, but it is possible that a latent positive effect emerged during the second trials. Park City weather in the summer is quite cool.

1 Red blood cell mass increased during the four-week stay at altitude.

2 Max V[O.sub.2] also increased at altitude.