What are the physiological adaptations to living at altitude?
There are both positive and negative adaptations to living at altitude: • Living at altitude causes increased EPO levels which leads to increased red blood cell mass. This is a very positive adaptation. • Living at altitude causes ventilatory acclimatization (increased breathing), which is a fairly minor negative adaptation (breathing muscles use oxygen). • Living at altitude causes changes in blood and muscle buffering capacity, which may be positive or negative. • The degree of performance improvement from altitude training depends on the ratio of positive to negative adaptations. The challenge is to manage the exposure to altitude to maximize the net benefit. Why live high and train low? • If an athlete can do the same absolute amount of work at altitude, then training at altitude should lead to an improvement in performance. If, as is generally the case, training intensity is reduced at altitude, then performance may decrease from altitude training. • Studies have found that living
