Altitude training has been used for decades by endurance athletes in an attempt to improve performance. In recent times this technique has been gaining popularity in professional team sports, perhaps most notably in the AFL. Before this season began no less than six AFL clubs participated in some sort of altitude training camp, and a number of clubs have now also installed simulated altitude, or hypoxic (low oxygen), rooms in an attempt to further enhance performance throughout the year.
However, many are still asking whether altitude training really works and, if so, how does it work?
At Collingwood, we are confident that with the right preparation and implementation, altitude training has a positive impact on our athletes. The club has now ventured on eight sojourns to various altitude venues around the world, and been using hypoxic rooms to implement intermittent hypoxic training (IHT) for more than 5 years.
Although we have been using these techniques for years, we don’t know it all and are constantly searching for ways to optimise the use of traditional altitude training camps, IHT and how these two techniques might complement one another to produce the best results for our athletes. As such, we constantly have research evolving in this area, working closely with the Australian Catholic University and the Australian Institute of Sport to answer...
