OK, I’ll explain. Hypoxia means “low oxygen”. It’s usually not a good thing. Water and oxygen – the two things which we need every minute of every day, being 55% water, and using oxygen as a primary fuel for almost everything our body does. Starve yourself of either, and it’s usually curtains pretty quick.
Back in 2004, Fabian Cancellara won the opening race of the Tour de France, the prologue. This is a short time trial, and usually demonstrates superior strength and a bit of endurance. Since then, Cancellara has become a time trial machine, winning the world title in 2006, 07, and 09, as well as the Olympic TT gold medal in 08. He is the only bike rider in the world who can sit at the front of the Pro Tour peloton, and pull away from the entire field, and hold them off for an extended period of time. He is, quite simply, the most powerful bike racer on the planet.
So later that year, when I got an email from some outfit called “AltiPower”, out of Australia, hawking a device which he had used before the Tour, I got intrigued. What they were selling was a machine to provide “Intermittent Hypoxication”. They provided some research done in New Zealand and Japan, and of course Cancellara’s success, to demonstrate its effectiveness in endurance sports. They also sold the devices for training use by high altitude expeditions, and as a medical treatment device.
IHT is a program of timed exposure to breathing low oxygen, followed by room air. The usual plan is breath low O2 air for five minutes, then regular air for 5 minutes, for a total of 60-90 minutes. The devices can simulate O2 levels at various altitudes. The O2 content is constantly measured. 21% is sea level room air; the air breathed for 5 minutes at a time can be in the single digits. For added “safety”, or at least data, one can use a pulse oximeter to measure one’s own blood oxygen percentage, trying to get down to the 80% range or a bit below.
They sell an expensive version which uses electrical power to suck out the air, and a “cheap” version (currently $800 for a starter kit) which combines a rebreathing system along with an OR type system to remove CO2 from the rebreathed air.
Anyway, back in 2005, I plunked down my $$$, and got the cheaper version. I’ve used it 2-3 times a year since then, before my biggest races (basically before each Ironman, and before the Boston Marathon). I use it for two weeks (10-12 days total), working up to (actually, down to) an O2 content of 8%, and a blood O2 saturation of 76%. Anything less than that, and I start to fade. Literally, my brain loses enough O2 that I feel like I’m starting to faint.
So why do I put myself through what seems on the surface to be pure quackery? Because it has worked for me. Or at least, in the races following each 2 week session, I have superior finishing strength, maintaining my speed while others around me slow down. I don’t ascribe ALL of my performance to this. But I do think it plays a part, along with proper pacing, nutrition, altitude training, weight management, focussed training, and mental focus and determination.
The research studies bear this out. Compared to control groups, doing the same training, but without IHT, the program on average improves running or cycling times by 2-6%. These effects occur during the 1-3 weeks after the last session; during the 2 week IHT sessions, performance declines. The process seems to speed up the production of red blood cells, but does not actually increase the total number of red cells per unit blood volume.
In any event, I’ve just done my next to last IHT session, which will finish 15 days before my Kona race. The combination of altitude training and my Intermittent Hypoxic Training will, I believe, once again provide me with a little extra boost compared to not doing them. The major downside to IHT is that it seems a little outside the mainstream of standard training practices, not unlike wearing a copper or magnetic bracelet, or hanging upside down from a metal bar by steel boots.
So. There you have one of my Training Secrets. Just goofy enough to be suspect, but also just possibly effective enough to be worth doing. It certainly makes network television more palatable, though, watching with a PAO2 of 78%.