30 July 2024 When less is more: Improving athlete performance through altitude and hypoxic training

The 2024 Paris Olympic Games has arrived. With thousands of athletes competing, each is looking for a competitive advantage that will see them succeed.

At Lincoln University, Professor Michael Hamlin researches the effects of exercise on human physiology, specialising in altitude and hypoxic training for people of all fitness levels and health including Olympians. Through this research, he has discovered new ways of enhancing athletes' ability to use more oxygen and improve performance.

“Altitude and hypoxic training place an athlete in an environment with less oxygen to metabolise food and create energy. Over time, the body adapts to receiving less oxygen. As a result, blood volume and red blood cells increase along with the capillaries around the muscles. This allows an athlete to carry more oxygen to the muscles, which enables them to compete harder and faster for longer.”

Professor Hamlin supported Dr John Hellemans, the then coach of the New Zealand triathlon team, with altitude training at the Snowfarm in Wanaka in preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Team member, Andrea Hansen (nee Hewitt), shares her experience.

“It was noticeably harder to breathe at altitude. So, I backed off my running pace and though it felt harder, my pace was slower. As we were not living at Snowfarm, and the programme was for a short time, we had a few days to get used to altitude and then completed hard training. This focused on aerobic and anaerobic work completing longer runs and shorter 400 m distances to build all-round fitness.”

Andrea has experience in altitude training at different distances above sea level and over several years and locations worldwide.

“In 2008, I had a couple of months between the world champs and the Olympics, so I went to the French Pyrenees to train. As I wasn’t in the greatest shape, being at altitude really helped me improve my fitness.

“I found it much harder swimming at altitude than at sea level, and as a result, this is where I saw the biggest improvement in my performance. As swimming is the first leg of a triathlon, this boost set me up well for the race. I finished eighth at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a big leap on my result at the world champs only three months before. The benefits from training at altitude are hard to achieve at sea level in the same timeframe,” says Andrea.

Training at different altitudes – 1,540 m at the Snowfarm and 1,850 and 2,200 m in the French Pyrenees- has given Andrea a good understanding of how to maximise performance and when to return to sea level for competitions.

“I often trained in the French Pyrenees close to competition time, coming down say three days before a competition starts. In contrast, for the Beijing Olympics, I had to come down for two weeks before competing. This timing is crucial to ensure altitude training benefits performance,” explains Andrea.

Professor Hamlin confirms this. He says after leaving altitude, an athlete receives an acute increase in their performance. As the body adjusts to oxygen availability at sea level, a slight regression in performance occurs. It peaks again and strongly about two to three weeks from leaving altitude.

Triathlete Andrea Hansen (nee Hewitt). Photo credit: Tommy Zaferes

Close monitoring is vital to supporting athletes during altitude training. With Dr Hellemans, Professor Hamlin assisted the Netherlands triathlon team with altitude training at St Moritz in Switzerland and at the Snowfarm in Wanaka in preparation for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

“The triathletes lived, slept and trained lightly at altitude and travelled to sea level for high-intensity work. During this time, we monitored the athletes’ health. We took their resting heart rate in the morning and asked them questions to understand how they were feeling and their sleep quality. Performance was measured to monitor how they were adapting to altitude.”

Andrea believes altitude training is a bonus both mentally and physically by adding an extra element to a programme.

“Changing your training regularly is important. Mixing up sea level and altitude training and choosing to train in different locations. All these factors are hugely beneficial.”

Alongside his research into altitude training, Professor Hamlin has successfully demonstrated hypoxia to be as effective.

“Hypoxic training, where a participant breathes low oxygen air, offers many benefits. While the body adapts to low oxygen levels, it alters the cells, increasing the mitochondria and the cell's ability to absorb oxygen. Plus, the anaerobic ability of the cells increases which is ideal for athletes who do bursts of sprinting while competing.”

This research is important for local athletes as countries like New Zealand do not have facilities at high enough altitudes for optimal training.

“If you want to see changes in red blood cells and an increase in blood volume, an athlete needs to be at 2,200 to 2,800 m above sea level. In New Zealand, we don’t have easy access to this altitude with 3,000 m at the top of Mount Cook. Dr Hellemans and I found improvements in the efficiency of athletes' systems in other ways at lower altitudes that lead to improvements in performance.”

For media enquiries, email media@lincoln.ac.nz or phone 03 325 3827.