What is better living in altitude and training at altitude vs an altitude tent? And what about elites training in Michigan

Most people get best results with live high train low

Live high could be a tent , altitude room conversion, or living in mountains and drive down for training

That’s the most simplistic answer to your question

You can get fanatical and do a 10 year plan to maximize red blood cell count and ability to transport oxygen etc. but keep it simple

If you have the $$, convert your house to an altitude house. Outside it's 100ft elevation, inside it's 9000. The dream.

Is an altitude tent really worth it? Even converting your house to altitude seems excessive, however, I don’t think spending 8-10 hours a night in the tent is enough to give you any benefit. I’m not even convinced that the altitude tent will help at all, even if you spend every minute not running in the thing.

Dhnkkdhoifb wrote:

Is an altitude tent really worth it? Even converting your house to altitude seems excessive, however, I don’t think spending 8-10 hours a night in the tent is enough to give you any benefit. I’m not even convinced that the altitude tent will help at all, even if you spend every minute not running in the thing.

Only if it is high enough, it has to be 5000m or above. If you sleep 8 hrs per day that is only simulating 0.333x5000m or 1660m. So either 9 hrs sleep or a tent at 6000m.

I am sure there must be some literature out there about high altitude training for elite endurance athletes.

The first question I have is: Are you really that good that you think that would make a difference?

Since I lived in altitude for a long time I can assure you that it doesn't make you faster. Quite the opposite. You just don't get the leg turnover. There is a huge difference having a month long higher altitude camp before an important competition and living in altitude.

Maybe you get the best of both worlds living in Boulder for example which is only 5000 ft high. But everything higher than 8000ft will be not beneficial for your performance long term.

And don't buy an altitude tent, rather go on vacation to Colorado with your family. The worst thing which will happen is, that you just have a nice vacation without any performance benefits.

Altitude is overrated. As previously noted, live high & train low is the ideal. Can be done with little trouble in a few locations in the US (Flagstaff-Sedona, Park City- SLC, Nederland-Boulder, Cloudcroft-Alamogordo) and altitude tent/room/house at sea level or altitude full time are the next best approximations. Yet Kawauchi, Shitara, JBS, Rodgers, Sell, Clayton, Clarke, and a host of others who have run faster than anyone here never really employed any altitude method. The real benefit of being at altitude (at least in the USA) is the arid climate (low rainfall & humidity) and high proportion of nearby wildlands tends to mean miles of dirt roads and trails. You want to train more if it's far more enjoyable than what you've experienced at sea level.

If living and training at altitude makes you better than the sea level natives, why do high school cross country runners from California and the East coast do better than Colorado HS runners? Maybe for a sea level runner to spend time in the summer at altitude is because in the summer sea level is hot and humid and altitude weather is ideal -- cooler and dryer.

Altitude is not all it's cracked up to be. It affects people differently. You may not get any benefit from it at all. So don't think it's going to give you the results you think it will. Just take a look at all of the top runners at the high school, college, and pro levels...they all live at places all across the country. If altitude were the end all be all for athletic performance, every single person would live at altitude.

There a plenty of runners who live in low areas of elevation that will be better runners than we will ever be.

I can't remember where I read this, maybe Daniels or Magness, but there is a toss up. Would you rather live at altitude but have less people to run with, smaller running communities (which also means a lot less racing options) and have more extreme weather to deal with (for example we are already having single digit temps in Colorado). Or would you rather not have altitude but have a great running community, racing scene, training partners, great environment for most of the year?

Also living at altitude in smaller towns there are less jobs and less career potential and growth.

To kind of bounce off of what Hog just posted, running at altitude is great for about 3-4 months of the year. It's mostly cold running for the rest of the year.

All also add that at altitude temps are colder. Which is great but a lot of times when you travel to race, you end up racing where temps are a little different. Which has an impact on your racing times. Which in my personal experience takes away the "gains" of altitude training.

Dhnkkdhoifb wrote:

Is an altitude tent really worth it? Even converting your house to altitude seems excessive, however, I don’t think spending 8-10 hours a night in the tent is enough to give you any benefit. I’m not even convinced that the altitude tent will help at all, even if you spend every minute not running in the thing.

Also you have to keep a jug to piss in the tent in case you gotta go in the middle of the night. Once the high altitude air in the tent is exposed to the natural low altitude air outside it takes awhile to get it reset.

People who train at altitude think highly of it.

15 years ago, I was asking the same questions. This is about the time the WIRED magazine article came out with the Altitude House, altitude tents were all the rage (all the top NCAA and post-college guys had 'em, it seemed), and Big Bear had been replaced by Mammoth Lakes.

I lived near another altitude area (Mt Baldy--5500-6000'), and probably could have done the live-high/ train low thing mildly well, but after I looked into it, i found that i wouldn't really be "living." Employment up top was damn near impossible. The need for a 4WD vehicle in the winter, with high fuel prices, and a rental unit didn't add up.

I chose to stay in my normal spot, work my tail off in construction, and other odd jobs, and trained harder (and more intelligently) than I ever had before. I had access to a variety of good tracks nearby to meet my needs, and I don't think I would have done much better than I did if I had utilized altitude. I had good results, and enjoyed it, but the idea of going through normal life in Big Bear/ Baldy or staying in my altitude tent playing video games and watching movies sounded dreadful. My mental health was much stronger than any altitude-induced Red Blood Cell count could have ever gained.

California population - 40 million

Colorado population - 5.7 million

Utah population - 3.1 million

Total - 8.8 million (or a little more than 1/5th of California's population)

Last year at NXN in Portland, Colorado had 4 runners in the top 10 and California had 2 in the boys championship race.

Current Top 30 HS boys team rankings

California - 3 teams

Colorado - 2 teams

Utah - 3 teams

Current Top 30 individual boys

California - 3 runners

Colorado - 3 runners

Utah - 1 runner

Current Top 30 HS girls team rankings

California - 4 teams

Colorado - 4 teams (3 in the top 10)

Utah - 2 teams

Current Top 30 individual girls

California - 3 runners

Colorado - 1 runners

Utah - 1 runner

It looks like kids who live at elevation "do better" (at least at the top level) than kids from California, despite the much larger population.

Hansons and other Michigan elite use the trails. Sandy hills hidden in 10-20 mile trail routes throughout the state. Also lots of rolling hills just outside major cities. No altitude training

Positive Contribution wrote:

Dhnkkdhoifb wrote:

Is an altitude tent really worth it? Even converting your house to altitude seems excessive, however, I don’t think spending 8-10 hours a night in the tent is enough to give you any benefit. I’m not even convinced that the altitude tent will help at all, even if you spend every minute not running in the thing.

Also you have to keep a jug to piss in the tent in case you gotta go in the middle of the night. Once the high altitude air in the tent is exposed to the natural low altitude air outside it takes awhile to get it reset.

This is not true.

Michigan Man wrote:

Hansons and other Michigan elite use the trails. Sandy hills hidden in 10-20 mile trail routes throughout the state. Also lots of rolling hills just outside major cities. No altitude training

Is this true? Keith does nothing in terms of altitude training, even a tent?

Foolish people. Altitude is huge.

Subway Surfers wrote:

Dhnkkdhoifb wrote:

Is an altitude tent really worth it? Even converting your house to altitude seems excessive, however, I don’t think spending 8-10 hours a night in the tent is enough to give you any benefit. I’m not even convinced that the altitude tent will help at all, even if you spend every minute not running in the thing.

Only if it is high enough, it has to be 5000m or above. If you sleep 8 hrs per day that is only simulating 0.333x5000m or 1660m. So either 9 hrs sleep or a tent at 6000m.

I'd take a look into the scientific literature, there is plenty available freely by Gore, Ashenden, Stray-Gundersen and other researchers on the duration etc.

The last think I'd do would be to apply these types of "expert" calculations where less time spent at simulated altitude can autistically be substituted with lower oxygen content/pressure (ie. higher altitude), far from obvious that the substitution can be done and the double higher altitude even gives double more EPO-response and correspondingly higher RBC-boost vs. lower altitude.

If one doesn't know he/she is doing, the end result can easily be a severe dehydration and a terribly headache with no extra RBCs and zero training motivation.

Evan Jogger wrote:

Altitude is overrated. As previously noted, live high & train low is the ideal. Can be done with little trouble in a few locations in the US (Flagstaff-Sedona, Park City- SLC, Nederland-Boulder, Cloudcroft-Alamogordo) and altitude tent/room/house at sea level or altitude full time are the next best approximations. Yet Kawauchi, Shitara, JBS, Rodgers, Sell, Clayton, Clarke, and a host of others who have run faster than anyone here never really employed any altitude method. The real benefit of being at altitude (at least in the USA) is the arid climate (low rainfall & humidity) and high proportion of nearby wildlands tends to mean miles of dirt roads and trails. You want to train more if it's far more enjoyable than what you've experienced at sea level.

Nice Cloudcroft-Alamogordo reference! Cactus-to-Cloud finisher here