How does altitude effect exercise

The goal is to gain the benefits of high altitude adaptations while maintaining a high-intensity training routine. When you work out, your blood delivers oxygen to your muscles. The oxygen is used to produce energy, which helps your muscles move and perform activity. Your muscles will eventually become fatigued.

A study comparing effectiveness of altitude training versus sea level training, found that altitude training can help muscle fatigue by increasing erythropoietin EPO production. According to this same study, the effect continues at sea level. This means you may benefit from improved oxygen delivery while competing at sea level. Along with improving oxygen flow, high altitude training can also increase your maximal oxygen intake, or VO 2 max. This is the highest amount of oxygen your body can consume during intense exercise.

The higher your VO 2 max, the better your endurance. This effect was observed in a small study involving seven elite distance runners. In another small study , 12 runners experienced increased VO 2 max after 11 days of altitude training. The researchers noted that this could boost performance at sea level.

As your muscles use oxygen during intense exercise, they produce a byproduct called lactic acid. Lactic acid can accumulate and lead to muscle fatigue. According to a article , altitude training could increase your tolerance to lactic acid. However, this is only temporary and within a few days our cardiac output will lower to levels lower than pre-ascent as other physiological adaptations occur.

As well as a lower cardiac output, longer term changes also include an increase in number of red blood cells and changes in muscle metabolism. According to Wikipedia, altitude training and the effects of altitude on performance became a hot topic after the Olympic Games in Mexico City which is at an elevation of 2, metres ft. It was noted that endurance events saw a significant number of below-record finishes, whilst anaerobic, sprint events excelled. Still today, the physiological effects of altitude and its role in training high for performance enhancement are an exciting on-going topic of research.

So with this in mind, it is definitely worth improving your cardiovascular fitness prior to your skiing or boarding holiday. The aim of cardiovascular exercise is to get your heart and lungs working hard for extended periods.

To further help you acclimatise and to help to enhance the functioning of cardiovascular system, take into account the following when you are at altitude:. References Cardiovascular adaptation to exercise at high altitude.

Exercising and living at higher altitude is something that has been used by many competitive athletes to attempt to gain an advantage during competition.

Training at altitude can induce high altitude acclimatization, thereby increasing respiratory frequency, accelerating heart rate, elevating hemoglobin level and red cell volume, enhancing capillary density, and reducing blood lactate concentration, which can further improve the function of cardiovascular system, local blood supply, lactic acid tolerance capacity, and maximal oxygen consumption VO2max of the athlete.

Over time, high altitude training can result in the increase of VO2max, but exercise performance is not completely associated with VO2max. High altitude training can also result in other changes of non-blood factors, such as energy saving, lactic acid threshold, and oxygen utilization of muscle. Upon the stimuli from hypoxia and exercise, the body produces a variety of adaptive responses such as changes to muscle mass and capillaries in skeletal muscle and increased ratio of capillaries to muscle fibers.

Previous studies have demonstrated that high intensity training under hypoxic environment can promote the mRNA expression of vascular endothelial growth factor VEGF in skeletal muscle, thus improving oxygen transportation and intake in muscle tissues.

In addition, hypoxic training can also enlarge the cross-sectional area CSA of skeletal muscle. Keeping in mind the adaptations and changes the body goes through when altitude increases, some athletes find that hypoxia training gives them a competitive edge at lower altitudes. It is important to be mindful of the dangers of increasing altitude too quickly as well as exercising at a higher altitude than you live at.

It is recommended to consult your physician prior to starting high altitude training. Initially, this increases heart rate, but, with time, the responsiveness of the heart decreases, so the initial tachycardia may not be sustained. Other consequences of sympathetic stimulation include an increase in resting metabolic rate, a shift away from glycogen toward free fatty acids as primary energy sources, and bone marrow stimulation to increase red cell production.

The parasympathetic nervous system may also be stimulated at high altitude, which may explain the reduction in maximum heart rate. Upon arrival at high altitude, aerobic working capacity is reduced.

Although this may or may not be attenuated following adaptation, endurance capacity does seem to improve.