Altitude before meet? help from jtupper?

I'll let jtupper handle the physiology, but your thinking is right on.

Research has shown that if you are competing at altitude, you want to get there either way early, or as close to the competition as possible.

Going up 2-3days before is pretty much the worst you can do.

Are their any other strategies, like hydration, nutrition, sleep, etc that could help in the weeks leading up the races?

Chlorophyll and maybe a coca cola from about 50+ years ago.

Ideal would be to get there Friday for Friday races and late Friday or Saturday early for Saturday afternoon races. Not much you can do if you have prelims in any distance races on Friday then finals Saturday, except that maybe you learned how it felt in the prelims so you can make some adjustments in the finals. First two minutes of any distance race should be your slowest 2 minutes of the race. Depends on the altitude, but you can probably figure 4-5sec per 400 slower in the longer races, but real close to normal pace in the 800. Think of negative splitting your races. And if you do go Thursday, then just take it real easy that day and early Friday. Good luck Jack

runkeller wrote:

Are their any other strategies, like hydration, nutrition, sleep, etc that could help in the weeks leading up the races?

EPO

Altitude tent.

message in a bottle wrote:

runkeller wrote:

Are their any other strategies, like hydration, nutrition, sleep, etc that could help in the weeks leading up the races?

EPO

Autoerotic asphyxiation

right wrote:

I'll let jtupper handle the physiology, but your thinking is right on.

Research has shown that if you are competing at altitude, you want to get there either way early, or as close to the competition as possible.

Going up 2-3days before is pretty much the worst you can do.

Please cite the research that supports your contention.

Most of it is based on the time course of changes that happen at altitude. I don't have time to look up all the data for you, but you can search for acute response to altitude if you really need sources.

As far as performance goes, there's research on the benefits of acclimitization in an article entitled:

Timing the arrival at 2340 m altitude for aerobic performance.

Thanks jtupper. I've also heard that hydrating, starting 1 week out helps as well as 1 ibuprofen each day. Is this true, and if so why?

Below is the abstract to the article that was cited in this thread.

Timing the arrival at 2340m altitude for aerobic performance

B. Schuler3, J. J. Thomsen2, M. Gassmann3, C. Lundby1,2,3

This study tested the hypothesis that maximal oxygen

uptake (V· O2max) and performance increase upon altitude

acclimatization at moderate altitude. Eight elite cyclists

were studied at sea level, and after 1 (Day 1), 7 (Day 7), 14

(Day 14) and 21 (Day 21) days of exposure to 2340 m.

Capillary blood samples were taken on these days before

performing two consecutive maximal exercise trials. Acclimatization

increased hemoglobin concentration and arterial

oxygen content. On Day 1, V· O2max and time to exhaustion

(at 80% of sea-level maximal power output) decreased by

12.8% (Po0.05) and 25.8% (Po0.05), respectively, compared

with the corresponding sea-level values. Subsequently,

these parameters increased by 3.2% (Po0.05) and 6.0%

(Po0.05) from Days 1 to7, by 4.8% (Po0.05) and 5.7%

(Po0.05) from Days 7 to 14, followed by 0.7% (P40.05)

and 1.4% (P40.05) from Days 14 to 21, respectively. These

data suggest that endurance athletes competing at altitudes

around 2340m should expose themselves to this altitude at

least 14 days before competition.

No doubt that after even a week at AL you will be feeling and performing better, compared with initial exposure. The dehydration thing happens upon exposure so it is no benefit to super hydrate prior to going up, but make sure you do drink often once you get there. There is a stress reaction (we found by collecting and analyzing 24-hour urine samples) that results in no noticeable NE stress the first day up, but that continued increasing daily for a couple weeks, which may explain why performances seemed to be a bit better upon arrival than a few days later. I had one guy (had been conference champion in the 3mile) improve rather little in his 3mile time over a period of 5 weeks at Al, so I sent him to SL for 12 days and first day back at Al he beat his previous best AL 3mile time by 34 seconds

Hey jtupper.....

I have a question. I went from SL to a 1500M race at 3000 feet in altitude. What kind of impact would that have on my race? Any rule of thumb or estimate would be fine.

I did this a couple of years ago and had a poor race and felt just a little off. I thought I had peaked perfect but I didnt account for the altitude difference and wanted your opinion. Thank you.

Thanks again jtupper. I've also heard that taking Ibuprofen or tylenol when first arriving at altitude and before racing can offset some of the negative performance effects. Is this true?