Is training at altitude useless?

It's useless for 90% of hobbyjoggers who go up to altitude for like a week or two expecting huge benefits from a few threshold sessions without having time to adjust fully.

Bless your heart for trying to wrap your mind around altitude training. It's not a fast-food drive-thru; you don't get instant results.

Right but like for an average college runner that runs 60-65 mpw, if I was to spend 6-8 weeks at altitude before xc is that going be beneficial aside from the focus I’ve had on running for the past 2 months or or all the benefits of altitude gonna be gone by the time I even have my first race

Altitude is overrated. It's great if you want to do races in altitude but it gets you limited results for sea level races.

I am sure there can be a benefit for world class athletes with their whole medical team if they train for the Olympics or something like that. But for the normal athlete it's more about changing the scenery for a different training session.

Never said I thought it was instant, I’m considering spending multiple months at altitude so definitely a long term thing

That will adapt you for that altitude.
It will not make you faster at sea level. After a few month of altitude running you will not have the turnover anymore that you used to have.

But go ahead and report back.

According to Arthur Lydiard, the benefit would come from the 3 previous generations of your family living at altitude.

This blog post:

zacalife.com

How Long Does It Take To Acclimate To Elevation: Plus 7 Tips

Zaca

When it comes to venturing into high-altitude destinations, the process of acclimation becomes vital to your experience. In this guide, we'll cover how long does it take to acclimate to elevation, with our top seven tips on h...

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has a nice summary of other sources that make claims about adaptations to altitude. Some changes are seen almost immediately (1-3 days) but full acclimatization takes around 2 weeks. It doesn't mention de-acclimization, but it's safe to assume that, if you leave altitude, your body will adapt back to sea level training in around that time frame.

An increase in important blood values after 1 month but years creates physiological changes over years.

1. You go to altitude for a few months.

2. When you come back down to sea level you then do higher quality workouts.

3. You get greater adaptations from said higher quality workouts.

4. You go back to altitude for a few months.

5. When you come back down to sea level you do even higher quality workouts.

6. You get even greater adaptations from said higher quality workouts.

7. And so on and so on....

I’m thinking those said adaptations would only be useful for racing at altitude. Your plan is an extended version of live high/train low.

Look at NCAA D1 XC results and come to your own conclusion

According to rekrunner, nothing beats training at altitude. Not even the very best doping. Of course, most altitude-trained athletes don't agree with him as they also dope.

Why would having more red blood cells only be useful for racing at altitude?

It isn't. It enables wr's to be set at sea level - as they have been after altitude-training - because of the boost in endurance.

Which men’s world record holder didn’t /doesn’t live and train at altitude?

my arm chair theory on altitude training is that it makes a slight percentage difference. that slight percentage when dealing with the pros and very very very high performing athletes is big because the difference between them is so very small, so any percentage of benefit is amplified.

the small amount of benefit gained by your typical runner guy is so small that it would make no noticeable difference at all. and as noted, it's not like you can spend a few days at altitude then come home from your ski trip thinking you got some big benefit.

Without some parallel universe where the same person trains at altitude, or doesn’t, the effects are unknown. There have been many great runners that trained only at sea level. Did Shorter have an advantage over Rodgers because he trained at altitude? None of the great 1500m/milers from the ‘70s and ‘80s, like Ovett, Coe, Cram, Scott and Walker did altitude training. Would German Fernandez, Ritz and the NP brothers been even faster in HS had they lived at altitude?

There’s no proof of a “boost in endurance”.

LRC: Altitude training is useless.

Also LRC: Training in the heat and humidity is a huge benefit.