DO IT IN YOUR SLEEP

A hypoxic tent means you can sleep at altitude without having to leave the house

First developed by Hypoxico in the 1990s, altitude tents can be a far easier and cheaper alternative to spending long periods of time living or staying at high altitude for acclimatisation. Unlike ‘real’ altitude, an altitude tent does not reduce the barometric pressure of the air within. Instead hypoxic (oxygen-depleted) air from an altitude generator is pumped continuously into the tent, displacing the regular air inside along with any exhaled carbon dioxide.

The hypoxic air has about 12% oxygen content compared to the 21% that sea level air contains. Using this system, altitudes of up to 5,000m can be simulated in the comfort of your own bedroom, allowing athletes to sleep or rest in a hypoxic atmosphere but train in their usual oxygen-rich environment. Prolonged and regular use has been shown to have significant benefits to athletic performance, so much so that WADA (World Anti-doping Agency) considered whether or not it should ban the use of altitude tents recently, although it was deemed too difficult to enforce.