Following the dominance of altitude acclimatised athletes during the 1968 Olympic Games held in Mexico City, altitude (hypoxic) training has become very popular among individual endurance athletes and almost all medal winner of the last Olympic Games in any endurance sport used altitude or hypoxic training in their preparation. In more recent times, media reports have also provided us with coverage of several high-profile clubs in non-endurance sports undertaking training camps at altitude in an attempt to gain a competitive edge. Thanks to the participation of leaders in the field of altitude training, the purpose of this symposium sponsored by Aspetar is to update our current knowledge about «Recent developments in altitude and hypoxic training».

Post by Dr. Olivier Girard & Dr. Yorck Olaf Schumacher

Dr. Paul Robach

After an introductory note by session chairs Dr. Olivier Girard (Lausanne University) and Dr. Yorck Olaf Schumacher (Aspetar), the first talk will be given by Dr. Paul Robach from the École Nationale des Sports de Montagne, Chamonix, France. Altitude training embraces various methods including the “live high–train high”, “live high–train low” and “live low–train high”. His critical review of these interventions will make the case that living and/or training in a natural hypoxic environment might be the best option for elite endurance athletes, both with respect to adaptive responses and motivational aspects.

Dr. Chris Gore

The second speaker, Dr. Chris Gore who is Head of physiology at the Australian Institute of Sport, will be given the opportunity to put the case based on 20 years of AIS research. His intervention will try to answer some of the important practical questions of “how high and how long is required to increase hemoglobin mass”, “what is the minimum time-effective dose?”, “how long do the effects last?”, and “will altitude training work for me?”. The innovative aspects of this talk will be lowering the boundaries of a beneficial altitude camp in terms of altitude dose. As critically interpreting changes in haemoglobin mass involves reducing sources of error associated with the technique he will also review data to quantify the imprecision of haemoglobin mass and how to minimise it.

Dr. Grégoire Millet

The third speaker is Dr. Grégoire Millet from Lausanne University, Switzerland. The main purpose of his talk will be to challenge two points: (1) that normobaric and hypobaric hypoxia can be used interchangeably, both in medicine and in sport, and (2) that altitude training benefits are limited to hemoglobin mass and to aerobic sports. Noteworthy, the potential for new hypoxic methods, the so-called “repeated sprint training in hypoxia” and the “live high–train low and high”, leading to improved repeated-sprint ability in team-sport players will be presented. This will lead to the introduction of an updated panorama of the different hypoxic methods currently available for a range of athletes engaged in endurance and team–sport disciplines.

Welcome to attend this symposium, which will undoubtedly generate passionate debates around this growing field!

The invited session [IS-PM15] Recent developments in altitude and hypoxic training sponsored by Aspetar will start 10:20 Saturday 27th June in Lecture room “High Live 3”.