Anyone ever been in a Hypoxic chamber?

[DaMan]

Something HappyScrappy said re red blood cells just reminded me of this...

My gym has sthg called a Hypoxic chamber, which is an enclosed chamber that's something like 25% oxygen depleted, designed to simulate training at a high altitude and build better endurance...

Wondering what y'alls experiences are with it, I'm about to hit a cutting cycle and figure I may as well do my cardio in there unless someone tells me otherwise... thoughts?

PS - re the red blood cells, oxygen depletion as the chamber has is supposed to create more red blood cells, so their pamphlet claims...

 

[fhg43]

Hypoxic chambers are kinduv the thing in professional bike racing, triathlon, and running. Top athletes in all these sports use the chambers. The chambers are designed to duplicate different levels of oxygen like what you'd find naturally at different altitudes.

Lots of endurance athletes live at altitude (Boulder for example) hoping to gain benefits from adjusting their bodies to training in an oxygen depleted environment. The theory is your body will naturally compensate and make more red blood cells to more effectively transport the limited amount of oxygen (more or less the jist of it-I'll try and find something more scientific). Normal people who live at altitude have a higher hematocrit (red blood cell count) than those who live at sea level. So this proves the theory that training at altitude is better, right? Actually no...

Here is the main problem: training at altitude isn't as good as training at sea level. There is more oxygen at sea level so you can get a better more intense workout-think of it like this; at sea level there is more gas for the engine so you get more power from the engine; at altitude there's less gas so your engine can't produce as much power. HOWEVER recovery at altitude has added benefits that recovery at sea level doesn't. When you train at sea level and then recover at sea level your body doesn't need to produce more red blood cells (RBCs), it just has to maintain status quo-your body need x amount of RBCs so your body produces that number. When you train at sea level and then recover at altitude your body needs to produce more RBCs to help efficiently transport the limited amount of oxygen; you need x amount of RBCs to recover from training + y to deal with decreased oxygen levels at altitude. Top cycling/tri/running pros will train normally (at sea level) and sleep in these chambers. In Europe I heard an Italian cycling team would have their training rides along the coast and then drive up to altitude and stay in a resort in the high mountains. Top pros prefer this to taking EPO as the cycling federations have finally developed EPO tests (though not very good ones) and it has almost the same effect while being more natural too. Exogenous EPO administration has to be done very carefully or you can kill the athlete! It is said that this increases your wattage at anaerobic threshold 10% and you get a 5% boost in hematocrit levels. This is huge for an athlete-this really benefits endurance athletes and anyone working out would notice better endurance.

Significant benefits can be gained from living and training at altitude for 3 weeks. After that the effect drops off. The decreased training intensity from training in an oxygen depleted environment is offset by the boost in RBC production.

There are a few companies who make chambers, but tents are supposed to be the nice thing. You can drape the "altitude tent" over your bed and sleep at 10,000 ft.

On thing to consider people tend to lose muscle mass when training at altitude!

Here's a link to check out:
http://www.sportsci.org/jour/0001/pf.html

FHG

 

[DaMan]

Damn, if that doesn't deserve Karma, I dunno what does (except for my penis enlargement thread which is now Platinum).

Thx for the insight!

So what's your take on working out in a chamber, but recovering at sea level? I'm not gonna drape anything over my bed, but I don't mind working out in the thing...

 

[mrt]

First of all I don't know much about Hypoxic Chambers. How does it actually work? by decreasing the pressure or supplying oxygen-less air (which is complicated thing to do. You need somethig like a Deco(hyperbaric) chamber)

fgh43,
The amount of O2 at sea level and high altitude is the same. The reason that you get less O2 into your lungs is due to the less atmospheric pressure. You just can't get enough Air-O2, because air is not dense at high altitudes.

I personally wouldn't train or workout in O2-less environment; it could be risky and not worth it. This is something for Pro athletes with qualified trainers.

 

[fhg43]

Yeah I did know that the o2 amounts and atmospheric pressure is the determining factor; it just slipped the old brain while trying to multitask at work (Beavis "hehehehe you said multitask").

I'm not quite sure how the chambers and tents work. I think they use a filter to redue the actual o2 levels as changing pressure could be dicey. They may change the pressure...changing atmospheric pressure isn't a huge deal if I'm correct. It's not like the pressure change with say diving deep in the ocean and then returning to the surface-water pressure is much greater air pressure. I know that you can have a room transformed into an altitude chamber-I know they have to seal the room. I know that the original chambers were coffin-like(?!?) tubes that were sealed.

I'll have to do more research. Here's a funny story-Lance Armstrong's US Postal pro cycling team has a team bus they use in Europe (most big pro teams have slick luxury tour buses). I guess they tried to make the bus into a giant hypoxic chamber so guys could recover at altitude after hard racing.

It should be noted that recovery is slower when trying to recover at altitude, but the benefits are huge in the long run. The effects of acclimatizing last for about 3 weeks.

FHG

 

[fhg43]

DaMan-
I don't think you'd do much harm by working out in there. Try it for 3 weeks and see what you think. 3 weeks is the magic number; it takes 3 weeks to acclimatize to altitude to reap any benefits and then the benefits last for about 3 weeks. I have heard that you do lose muscle mass-well at least endurance athletes lose muscle mass. They recommend endurance athletes lift while training at altitude so they don't lose muscle. I'd say if you are in the chamber lifting you'll be fine, but it may be harder to make gains and you may notice decreased performance for the first few workouts. Try it out-I wish my gym had one.

FHG

 

[morgan122]

i personally would like to endorse hypoxic or simulated altitude training under the correct training programme it has significant benefits for obvious reasons you apply a stress (reduced oxygen) and the body being the wonderful thing it is compensates for this stress my producing more haemoglobin this means your body can now process oxygen more efficiently. apply this in a sea level environment which is comparably abundant in oxygen and your body now has large amounts of oxygen of which it can now actually put to use. i did a ten week intermittent hypoxia training programme and have never felt so energetic fit and healthy. shaved my 20km bike time from a starting point of 45min down to about 26. while dropping about 10kg and getting body fat percentage down to 8 percent. this in 10 weeks was impressive. absolutely exhausting for the first 3 weeks but well worth it. just my personal opinion did write a 6 page medical report on it but that was 2009 and my brain has been stuffed with all sorts of useless information since then and cant recall specific details