Altitude Gyms
Altitude gyms in Australia are growing in popularity. People are looking to maximise the amount of time they are working out, and are seeking out alternatives or perhaps more boutique offerings.
Training in a reduced-oxygen environment changes what a session costs you. At 2,000 m your aerobic ceiling is roughly 10% lower, so the same watts or pace sit about 10% higher as a share of your maximum than they would at sea level. That is the part we can stand behind, and it is true from your first session. What the evidence does not support is an altitude bonus on top of the work: a pooled analysis of 35 studies found aerobic training in hypoxia produced no greater gains in VO₂max, peak power or time to exhaustion than the same training in normal air. What interests us most is the lesser-known part: what altitude does not do at gym doses. A 45-minute session is a small hypoxic dose — one night in a sleeping system delivers more of it before midnight — so a gym session builds your training, not your haemoglobin. What it does change is the ratio between the mechanical load on your body and the cardiovascular work you get out of it, and that is genuinely useful if you know what to do with it.
How many altitude training sessions should you do per week?
- We suggest a minimum of two sessions of at least 45 minutes, evenly spaced throughout the week. Alternate between specific strength training or sprint training.
Sprint training
Begin with 10 x 5 second sprints at an altitude of 2000m with an interval in between of 3 minutes of moderate exercise (let's say at a breathing rate of a brisk walk to light run). Repeated sprints in hypoxia are the one gym format with positive pooled evidence behind them, and what they improve is fatigue resistance rather than sprint power: in the trial this protocol comes from, average sprint power rose equally in the hypoxic and sea-level groups, while sprints to exhaustion went from 9.4 to 13.0 in the hypoxic group only (Faiss 2013). What predicted results was the work-to-rest ratio and sticking with it for at least four weeks — not how high the altitude was set. Run it for at least four weeks, adding a second per sprint each week and capping at 10 seconds. Individual responses vary.
Strength training
Begin with 4 x 3 minute strength efforts. When I was a professional cyclist I would increase the resistance at an altitude of 2000m with an interval in between efforts of around 3 minutes of moderate intensity high cadence for a cyclist (at a breathing rate of a brisk walk to light run). Over six weeks at three sessions a week, sustained efforts like these in hypoxia have been shown to produce a glycolytic adaptation: muscle phosphofructokinase rose 59% in the hypoxic group against 17% at sea level, and power at 4 mmol/L of lactate rose 7-9% in the hypoxic group only (Puype 2013). Note what that is — the muscle getting better at working without oxygen, not a hormonal effect. Three weeks is a starting block rather than a full course; the measured effects came at six. Individual responses vary.
It would certainly be recommended to do three sessions, but this can be difficult with people’s busy lifestyles.
A recovery session at altitude is the most defensible use of an altitude gym. Because your aerobic ceiling is lower, you reach a target heart rate at lower power or pace — the cardiovascular work without the mechanical load. That is useful when you are managing joint or tendon load, returning from injury, or protecting your hard sea-level sessions. As a cyclist I was averaging 25-30 hours on the bike a week and would still do 1.5-2 hours on my recovery days. I would do these recovery days at altitude because I could significantly lighten the training load on my muscles and still have a meaningful day of training.
Happy training. Rico.