As anticipation builds towards the start of the 2017 Tour de France, there will be much speculation on the preparation of race favourites. Who is showing the form of previous years and which is the strongest team are common themes throughout the month of June.
Going hand-in-hand with these broad-based observations is the topic of Altitude. Professional Cycling Teams invest a lot of time, money and human resources into altitude training camps. And rightly so because from what I experienced during my 16 years as a professional, altitude training works. But does living and training at 1600-2400m for two-plus weeks produce changes at a cellular level that translate to improved performance? Or do altitude camps create a unique training effect which is the result of completing 2500 to 4000m of climbing per day over a two-three week period?
Whatever the answer it's clear that to be considered a general classification contender in any of the three Grand Tours you must spend a lot of time living and training up amongst the clouds.
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When looking at the time away from family, the cost and hassle of going to altitude and the physical challenges faced once there I said to myself on more than one occasion "this had better be worth it"? And by worth it I mean I wanted to see and feel an improvement in performance after exposure to Altitude. But before I share some of my own observations about altitude training I'll hand over to Sports Scientist Daniel Healey to set the scene on why all this effort is worth it. Daniel and I worked together on this precise topic in 2015 where we planned a very successful altitude camp prior to victory in the Giro that same year.
"It's been known for centuries that we live submerged at the bottom of an ocean of air and the pressure it exerts upon us decreases the higher we climb. At sea level the barometric pressure of air is 760 Torr (mmHg) however at the top of Mount Everest this pressure drops to 250 Torr. This gradual decrease in pressure as you climb higher is the main driver for some of the adaptations we see in riders training at altitude. Of course we don't train anywhere near as high as most mountaineers would routinely climb.
"Instead there seems to be a sweet spot of around 1600 to 2400m that works best for riders. Interestingly this altitude band coincides with cabin pressure on most commercial aircraft. But the key detail here is that the partial pressure of Oxygen (O2)at 1600-2400m is sufficient to ensure that blood is saturated with O2 in the resting state. But as soon as you start training at this altitude a fine line is crossed and the body is placed under increasing stress; which ultimately drives adaptations".
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