High-altitude (hot) air

The Barcodes have been the poster boys for high-altitude training for quite a while now. AussieRulesBlog makes no secret of our scepticism, but just about every team bar the Nar Nar Goon thirds is taking off for mountain climes during the off-season these days.

 

So, we were more than usually interested to see that a scientific study of the Barcodes’ high-altitude efforts had been published.

 

Not being sufficiently flush to subscribe to the publishing journal (see previous post), we rely on the abstract (summary of the paper for those not familiar with academic terminology) for this discussion.

 

Apparently players who train at moderately high altitude for an extended period — 19 days in this study — make slight improvements in their time trials and red blood cell counts. Hardly surprising. Thinner air at higher altitude means more red blood cells are required to transport sufficient oxygen to the body’s muscles. Pretty much anyone spending an extended period at those altitudes will have an elevated red blood cell count.

 

The kicker in this study is that the high-altitude trainers were only measured against their sea-level ‘controls’ at the conclusion of the high-altitude training and again four weeks later.

 

Just to refresh your memory, this high altitude training — which generates an improvement of two (2) or three (3) per cent in time trials and red blood cell count — is normally conducted in November. And the benefits in terms of training capacity last for “at least four weeks”. Do the benefits last for eight weeks, or twelve? The home and away rounds are twenty-three (23) weeks, plus pre-season, plus finals.

 

Lets apply the blowtorch of logic to this result. If 19 days is sufficient for the body to acclimatise and produce more red blood cells, it’s likely that elevated count isn’t going to persist for too long when the body returns to sea level.

 

Red blood cells live for 100–120 days, so the extra cells generated in the high-altitude environment will die and not be replaced back at sea level — before the home and away rounds commence.

 

The Age’s story reports that the study acknowledged that the placebo effect could not be eliminated as a contributing factor to the alleged success of high-altitude training — this wasn’t included in the abstract. The placebo effect — change of scenery, excitement at being somewhere ‘special’, being told that high-altitude training would make them into super-men — is a far more likely cause for any longer-term benefits than the high-altitude training itself.

 

So, the Barcodes players might be (allegedly) human after all, and just gullible enough to believe in the high-altitude hype.