Scientific Background

Let's get to the interesting aspects, what is it about, what is the benefit and what possibilities are there for each individual.
In the following we will also deal with special fields of application and reflect the experience we have gained so far with customers in altitude training. Especially in the area of what is possible we would like to fall back on the experiences made and not reproduce everything that is theoretically possible as if we could do everything.

In the following I would like to reflect the knowledge I acquired during my diploma exams for which I had chosen altitude training as a second main topic.


What happens at high altitudes?

So, you hear/read more often that the oxygen content is lower, but this is not the case, in normal air (also in the natural altitude) the oxygen content in the air is always around 21%.
However, as the altitude increases, the air pressure decreases, as does the partial pressure of oxygen, which reduces the oxygen content of the breathing air because the lower pressure means that less oxygen is available within a defined amount of air than at sea level.


What does this mean for the body - how does it react?

The body naturally tries to continue to supply itself with oxygen if it finds itself in a situation where it has less at its disposal. For this purpose, for example, the respiratory rate and the heartbeat are increased, and the body tries to ensure its adequate supply through the increased delivery rate. Without an adjustment, however, this is only possible to a limited extent, especially for untrained persons; one can assume that oxygen intake decreases by one percent every 100m in untrained people from medium altitudes (1200 - 1500m).
Let's go back to the Olympic Games in Mexico City, where endurance performances that were longer than a few minutes showed a drop in performance of up to almost 10%.
So the body as a whole is more stressed and tries to compensate for this somehow, so it should not be overloaded and a lot of fluid should be supplied as the loss through the airways (increased frequency) is higher than normal.

What are the medium-term adaptations/benefits?

The body produces more red blood cells (erythropoiesis) to transport more oxygen. In addition, the body makes it easier for the oxygen to detach from the blood cells and thus enables an improved supply of the muscles and the body, which increases performance.
As a rule, however, the blood does not thicken as shown in the following figure (Fig.1: Change in blood composition during endurance training (Neumann 2005):