How much difference would altitude training make to non-elites?

0 to 6% if you do live high, train low.

The link will show you the improvement for those who lived high, trained high.

Note: the study I linked to is with runners closer to 30min 10K runners. Not sure anyone has looked at really non-elite runners.

your study is for 4 week living at altidue.

1 full year living and training high would probably make a bigger difference.

Altitude studies assume an athlete will not get injured while living &/or training at higher elevation. A sea level individual increases risk of injury living and/or training at high elevation. Lack of oxygen inhibits individuals from recovering.

Not buying it. Average improvement after 4 weeks is 1.5%? So if Iowa State and Tulsa had gone to elevation for 4 weeks before conference, regionals, and nationals last year, I guess they would have gone 1-2.

Hmmm... personally I find 6% a little bit hard to believe. I recently TT'd a 10k in 33:01. The maths suggests that with the 4% boost from VF's & 6% from altitude I'd be sub-30. I'm fairly skeptical.

Asking A Question wrote:

Hmmm... personally I find 6% a little bit hard to believe. I recently TT'd a 10k in 33:01. The maths suggests that with the 4% boost from VF's & 6% from altitude I'd be sub-30. I'm fairly skeptical.

The Vaporfly can give an improvement of up to 4% in running economy. And a 4% improvement in running economy doesn't necessarily mean a 4% improvement in performance.

I remember reading somewhere that it's more like an improvement of up to 2% in performance. But I can't find the link right now. So that's kinda useless information.

Asking A Question wrote:

Hmmm... personally I find 6% a little bit hard to believe. I recently TT'd a 10k in 33:01. The maths suggests that with the 4% boost from VF's & 6% from altitude I'd be sub-30. I'm fairly skeptical.

You're right. It's nonsense. Luv2run has very naive beliefs about oxygen delivery and ex phys in general and simply refuses to engage in any meaningful dialogue.

As Jack Daniels says; "altitude training is just another form of training" and he gave very reasonable and reliable data and explanations for that claim.

I suspect that one of the main reasons why he is so skeptical of grandiose claims for proposed magical enhancements is because he knows what calorimetry is and how other researchers don't have an effing clue.

Altitude training is overrated in my opinion. I am sure if it's done right it can get you a boost for a short time if you train for a specific event and go to a higher elevation to train.

Training year around in altitude probably will make most runners slower not faster. You just don't have the turnover. (I am not talking about Kenyans)

I was a mid 32:00 guy before going to altitude and was the same after I came back down. I don't believe it did me any good at all but you can never say such a thing definitively because you cannot know what you'd have run had you not gone to altitude. I am glad that I did it because now I don't have to wonder what would have happened if I'd gone off for a spell of altitude training. I also think that you cannot underestimate the value of the pilgrimage, of being serious enough about the sport to disrupt your life and do something semi radical to get significantly better at it.

I was about a 36:00 10k guy a few years back when I had the opportunity to spend a year at altitude (mostly 7,500'-9,000'). Doing the same mileage volume and very similar workout schedule as I had done at sea level, I averaged 0:11/mile better over about a half dozen races ranging from 5k to 10k, that I previously had done with my sea level training. So this was about a 3% improvement for me. Everyone responds differently to altitude. For me I felt like I got a small but definite endurance benefit from the altitude over and above my usual training.

No difference between elite and non-elite. If it helps, it's good.

How much a hypothetical athlete improves depends on how good that runner is, and what is holding him back, making a wide range of answers possible.

Co-founder Weldon went from 30:14 after five years of track at the University of Texas, to run 28:06.58.

He attributes it to increasing mileage and running easy runs slower, but he also moved to trained at Flagstaff.

Luv2Run's link that say 1.5% average ranging from 0-6% sounds reasonable for one training session at altitude.

rekrunner wrote:

1, How much a hypothetical athlete improves depends on how good that runner is, and what is holding him back, making a wide range of answers possible.

2, Co-founder Weldon went from 30:14 after five years of track at the University of Texas, to run 28:06.58.

3, He attributes it to increasing mileage and running easy runs slower, but he also moved to trained at Flagstaff.

4, Luv2Run's link that say 1.5% average ranging from 0-6% sounds reasonable for one training session at altitude.

1, Yes, lots of reasons like those.

2, And his coach John Kellogg gave him confidence to keep improving, which takes thousands of miles and lots of quality workouts.

3, What else happened? He became more energy efficient.

4, Maybe, but 1.5% is often referred to as being statistically insignificant in ex phys research. And Luv2run has a fixation on concepts which ignore calorimetry. And you don't understand calorimetry either. Nor, it seems do a very high proportion of ex phys researchers and peer reviewers of the endless stream of papers proposing enhancements which circumvent the laws of physics.

5, I'm trying to explain something very simple here, but after 15 years, you're still not grasping it.

Asking A Question wrote:

Say you have a 30-minute 10k runner in his prime who does not live at a high altitude and has never made use of altitude equipment, then he started regularly training and sleeping at an altitude, how much faster would he become, say, a year later? (Assuming he raced at low altitude). Would he become a sub-29 guy? Or is the improvement more minimal, like he'd become a 29:45 runner? Or is it possible he wouldn't improve at all? Thoughts appreciated. Thanks!

For 10K, it is probably less indicative since he was training for a marathon, but Sondre Moen spent a long period around 8-9 months living and training at altitude in 2017.

From PBs of 28:25 (track) and 28:29 (road) at 24-25 years of age, he ran a 27:55 in 2017 at the age of 27. In 2019 he ran 27:24.78 on the track.

He made similar gains in the 5000m (13:42.89 to 13:20.16), and huge gains in the marathon (2:12:54 to 2:05:48).

not Luv2run wrote:

1, Yes, lots of reasons like those.

2, And his coach John Kellogg gave him confidence to keep improving, which takes thousands of miles and lots of quality workouts.

3, What else happened? He became more energy efficient.

4, Maybe, but 1.5% is often referred to as being statistically insignificant in ex phys research. And Luv2run has a fixation on concepts which ignore calorimetry. And you don't understand calorimetry either. Nor, it seems do a very high proportion of ex phys researchers and peer reviewers of the endless stream of papers proposing enhancements which circumvent the laws of physics.

5, I'm trying to explain something very simple here, but after 15 years, you're still not grasping it.

5, It looks like you are trying to explain "how" -- the question here is "how much".

With respect to calorimetry, I understand heat accumulation and the related heat dissipation are factors that can limit performance. Besides efficiency, something as simple as losing weight can improve both reduce heat generation and increase heat dissipation.

What you are trying to explain is indeed something very simple. I prefer a more complex Endurance Performance Model from long time Exercise Physiologist Stephen Seiler. It includes factors like efficiency and psychology, but also many more internal and external factors. As complex as it is, Seiler says it is still over-simplified, listing 8 more factors that could be added. Performance limiters like heat accumulation and dissipation were not included (directly), but easily could be.

Once I stumbled upon his Endurance Performance Model, and his related "Time Course of Training Adaptations" (a simple representative graph and explanation of VO2max + Lactate Threshold + Efficiency timeline of performance gains), I closed the "physiology" chapter and decided it was better to focus my energy on more pragmatic topics like proven effective training methods, and running results as measured by a stopwatch, regardless of the cause, or complex combination of causes.

Luv2run posted a link to a 2008 study by Stray-Gundersen and Levine. I have no strong opinions about Luv2run, but I do have a high opinion of Stray-Gundersen and Levine. I have often linked to an earlier 1997 study by these same authors, looking at high-low performance, which included a sea-level performance control phase (where everyone improved at sea-level as they got used to the study methods) , a sea-level control group, a high-low altitude training group, and a high-high altitude training group composed of men and women. It is hard for me to ignore the significant altitude related changes in oxygen, lactate, blood, ventilation, and time-trial performance values they observed, which don't seem to be easily explained by efficiency and calorimetry alone -- but you are welcome to try.

I believe they will replace altitude living with sauna training in the future

Our calorimetry is limited genetically. So any proposal of a training induced increase in oxygen uptake has to be explained with reference to this.

It is reasonable to propose an optimal hematocrit/plasma ratio for a race that is within the normal range. And if you observe changes in heart rate you can estimate changes in plasma volume and its effect on oxygen delivery and heat dissipation.

Regarding weight loss both short term (fluid and glycogen loss) and long term (fat loss and sometimes muscle mass also) we lose power when we lose weight and gain power when we gain weight. So when we train and race we are constantly trying to balance efficiency and power whilst maintaining homeostasis of heat production and dissipation.

But these are metabolic issues separate from biomechanical efficiency which comes from elastic energy return which has zero metabolic cost. And from neural conditioning which improves our ability to maintain a task for longer. And there is another factor which is much harder to explain; our emotional state and its effects on our performance.

My argument with beliefs of altitude training and blood mavvnipulations is this dumbing down race performance to hematocrit, and ignoring so many factors. It's beyond bad scivv vence, it's just plain idiotic.

If a anyone believes a higher hematocrit delivers more ATP, then this has to be explained in calorimetry. But since Luv2run other wilfully ignorant people refuse to recognize this, then all they are doing is endorsing bad science.

Short answer: some or none. The general population has the same distribution of responders.