The Altitude Centre

We regularly see improvements of around 10 per cent during our Power Profile service, at both sea level and altitude, after a six to eightweek block of training at altitude. The higher your FTP (Functional Threshold Power), the more difficult it is to hit that 10 per cent mark, but an 8.5 per cent improvement is impressive, especially considering you’re working at over 5w/kg, and the fact you weren’t quite able to hit the number of hours you would have perhaps liked to during the training block. The minimum period we would recommend to see the benefits is a block of four to six weeks.

A lot of our clients report that they feel less breathless, and are able to maintain a higher speed out on the roads for a given ride. We also see an improvement in recovery, which allows you to recover from a big climb, or respond to a change in the race pace more easily without over-exerting yourself and blowing up.

Improvements are also seen in VO max and lactate threshold at both sea level and altitude. Far from being scientifically controlled, Joe was able to improve his performance at both sea level and simulated altitude at a faster rate than he’s seen previously, even with reduced weekly Training Stress Score values than some previous training blocks.

Whether this was down to the hypoxic intervention, greater structure within the workouts or increased indoor riding time making for more time-efficient training, it’s hard to say. However, we saw a solid improvement nonetheless. From a training perspective, we followed as many best practices as we could and were careful to periodise the plan to allow for sustainable progression. We aimed for two to three hypoxic sessions per week, alongside at least one long duration endurance ride, as well as some structured interval sessions without altitude simulation.

We tried to use the kind of program that most riders could manage alongside a normal job and commitments, yet still take advantage of the benefits hypoxic training can provide.