Hypoxic training, breath holding, nose breathing during running

You can simulate training at very high altitudes, by running with a plastic bag over your head.

Thx mate.

But I was tryin to be kinda serious about this stuff so if u do know the answer give it to me cause this is suppose to be serious topic...

I had an australian coach tell me this about 35 years ago. I incorporated it into our training but ceased when I had athletes take it to dangerous levels. When commenting to another coach he suggested to do it offseason in a pool as repeats across the pool with 1 breath.

I believe Salazar ran around with a snorkel looking thing for a while that simulated breathing at high altitude. That was also the year he ran his worst at the US Olympic Trials, at least that I'm aware. It's well known now that the best method is to live high, train low. I could see holding one's breath being somewhat effective, possibly by increasing the amount of 2,3-DPG in your blood, but I don't know if there've been any studies on this.

As for using oxygen, the amount of hemoglobin one has just shows how much oxygen their blood can carry. Obviously that's important, and we do use little of the O2 in our blood at rest, but you can get significant O2 deplete blood while exercising, especially if you're well trained so that your CNS doesn't force you to stop at first detection of low O2 saturation. Actually USING O2 efficiently is going to be a product of O2 dissociation curves, myoglobin content, and mitochondrial density.

Everyone knows living at altitude stimulates epo release to increase hematocrit. It's not entirely clear how much living and training at altitude helps though. The benefit is greatest if one grows up at altitude. There've been plenty of very successful athletes who rarely if ever lived or trained at altitude, so I wouldn't get too hung up on it.

So you want to know if hampering your training will improve your running.

It won't help....breathe control for swimmers is important because it helps you work on maintaining form while feeling very uncomfortable. It does not stimulate any adaptations that improve fitness in swimmers or in runners.

Forget the breath holding. It is not going to do what you think.

Yes, endurance athletes often live and train at altitude, but the best model is to live high, train low (especially high intensity runs).

Training in a low O2 atmosphere is not really ideal unless one is going to be competing in such a location.

Joaquim Cruz used to incorporate breath holding for the last 40-50 meters of some of his interval repetitions and it worked for him.

after the tone wrote:

Joaquim Cruz used to incorporate breath holding for the last 40-50 meters of some of his interval repetitions and it worked for him.

There is scientific evidence for ya. I never heard of Coe doing it. Lydiard did not teach it.

Thank you so much for helping me to find the answer for my "tricky question".

I was just wondering if any of the current coaches use this training. I mean as somebody just wrote holding breath for couple of meters/seconds if my assumption is right - its the same/perhaps even greater intensity but the body has to cope with less oxygen resulting in better performance?.

In the early 1990s, Benjamin Levine, a researcher at the University of Texas, seemed to have made a discovery by exposing college athletes to low concentrations of oxygen (hypoxia) during rest, and normal conditions ) during exercise, Levine and his colleagues were able to show that 5,000m times could be improved by an average of 13.4 seconds in elite college athletes .

So it is working?

Thanks!

Have you ever heard by chance that somebody would "force" his athletes to nose breathing, breath holding?

It is said that with more red blood cells, we can utilize more than the usual 40% of the oxygen we breathe in. Once the athlete returns to sea level, then he or she should be more efficient thanks to the increased red blood cell count right?

I read that Brazilian track coach Luis de Oliveira used hypoxic training to train American Mary Decker who set six world records from 800 meters to the mile, and the Brazilian 800m runner Joaquim Cruz to a gold and silver medal in the 1980's.

I also read that one of the training could be something like this:

"Hypoxic fartlek workout"

To take a deep breath and hold it for 15 seconds while pick up the pace and to concentrate on form. When the 15 seconds are up, to jog easily for a minute, breathing normally. With each interval, to increase the time to hold breath by 5 seconds until you can't hold your breath for the entire interval. These intervals should teach the body to hold its running form, even when being tired and muscles are brimming with lactic acid.

And this tells a lot as well:

http://fellrnr.com/wiki/Intermittent_Hypoxic_Training_101

Expose subjects to 15,000 feet for 1 hour per day over several days for 7 to 11 sessions showed increased blood O2 saturation compared with initial exposure and the benefits were detectable for up to 4 weeks.

Exposure of 30 min to 3 hours every 2 to 3 days for 9 exposures increased hemoglobin by 12% and red blood cells by 22%

Exposure of 3x (6 min low O2, 4 min normal air) per day for 14 days increased breathing volume at altitude by ~50%. Partial pressure of O2 started at 50 mmHg (20,000 ft) dropping to 35 mmHg (28,000 ft). Several studies have shown similar results.

5x (15 min 11% O2 + 15 min recovery) for 14 day produced changes to the metabolic pathways that optimize the use of oxygen.

Studies in rats suggest that continuous exposure to altitude reduces anti-oxidant defenses, but IHT improves them.

Other studies in rats indicate that IHT changes the ratio of fat to protein burning in favor of fats by 80%.

A study of workers that cleaned up after Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion showed that they had higher levels of oxidant stress where higher than normal. Exposing the workers to IHT of 3x (5 min 7-8% [28,000+ ft] O2 with 5 min normal air) for 14 days significantly reduced the oxidant stress.

Studies have shown IHT reduces the oxidant stress associated with bronchial asthma. (There were large variations in individual response, and more research is needed.)

Recent studies indicate that IHT stimulates NO (Nitric Oxide) production, with the excess stored in the vascular walls. This improves blood pressure.

Research indicates that there is a very wide variability in the response to altitude (IHT or other) and tolerance of extreme hypoxia. Future research may provide methods of overcoming the lack of response in some individuals.

Western Research

Research[2] using highly trained runners showed no running improvement with IHT. However, this study used IHT for 4 weeks and had O2 saturation values of 89.9, 86.3, 85.9, and 81.4 for each week. The value of IHT is dependent upon the O2 saturation levels, with little effect until values under 89%[3]. The athletes in the study therefore only received significant hypoxia for about one week. The athletes were given 5 min hypoxic, 5 min normal for 70 minutes total for five days per week, 4 weeks total.

A similar research[4] study showed a significant improvement in 3K running performance. This study used 90 minutes of IHT (5 hypoxic:5 normal) for 15 days over a three week period, using 13,000 feet at the start to 19,000 feet at the end.

A study[5] looking at Hypoxia EPO, a hormone that stimulates red blood cell production showed a ~50% increase in EPO from 4 hours of IHT or 2 hours of continuous hypoxia, but no response from 5 minutes or 1 hour. The IHT was a simulated altitude of 18,000 ft

Subjects exposed hypoxia in a hypobaric chamber showed elevated EPO levels after 114 min at 9,000 feet and or after 84 minutes at 12,000 feet. EPO levels continued to rise with longer exposure. [6]

Research using the AltoLab system showed a significant improvement in sprint speed. The study used 6 min hypoxia (10,000 to 18,000 ft) with 4 min recovery for an hour a day for 15 days. The study shown a tiny improvement in blood parameters (hemoglobin/hematocrit) normally associated with altitude training.[7]

IHT increased lung force in asthmatic and non-asthmatic athletes. There was no deterioration in asthma status from the trial, and half of the asthmatics reported a reduction in the need for medication. The trial used 15 sessions over three weeks, with each session being 5 min hypoxia followed by 5 min normal air, repeated for 60 minutes. The hypoxia was equivalent to 22,500 ft.[8] Other studies have reported a similar improvement in asthma, with reduced attacks, reduced severity of attacks and reduced need for medication.