Altitude Training or Hyperbaric
Trainers have realised for many years that oxygen is one of the core limitations on performance. There has been much speculation about how to increase oxygen levels within the body from bubbling gaseous oxygen through drinking water, to giving the banned EPO and blood doping to increase the number of RBCs in circulation in the blood to increase oxygen carrying capacity to muscles etc.
More recently there are products on the market that reputedly increase oxygen levels in much the same way as Aerobic Oxygen does - through the digestive tract. Hyperbaric chambers provide increased oxygen to the body at an increased pressure of more than 1 ATA and is referred to as hyperbaric oxygen therapy or HBOT. Research has demonstrated that the effects only last around 3 hours following exposure. HBOT has also been used to improve healing from injuries by reducing scar tissue formation, reducing swelling and pain and improving oxygen supply to damaged tissues by increasing plasma oxygen levels to enhance the rate of repair. It is important for maximum effectiveness that HBOT is provided ideally within 60-90 minutes post injury and at higher pressures ie 2.2 - 2.8 ATA. Hyperbaric treatment has also been found to help reduce infection by increasing body oxygen levels and boosting the immune system. HBOT has been used on an ongoing basis to speed up the healing process - most famously with footballers David Beckham and Wayne Rooney - both following a fracture to a metatarsal. It is interesting to note that whilst both players returned to playing football in record time, neither player showed particularly good form or energy levels on their return. There are sound scientific reasons as to why this happened.
On the face of it, oxygen-delivering compounds and HBOT sound like a good idea to enhance performance on an ongoing basis and to maintain higher levels of body repair purely by keeping body oxygen levels artificially high. It might also sound like a better option than SAT because body oxygen levels are raised immediately and do not require a 3 week initial SAT program followed by a week every month to maintain the effects.
However if we now consider the physiological adaptations to SAT and their reversal if SAT is not regularly boosted, we can see that ongoing HBOT or regular training on oxygen-rich compounds will actually have a detrimental effect over time.
The physiological adaptations to providing a higher oxygen supply on a regular basis are
- Reduced capillary density due to increased plasma and tissue oxygen levels negating their requirement
- Reduced muscle mitochondria
- Reduced RBC due to increased plasma levels
- Due to reduced capillaries, substrate delivery (other than oxygen) to tissues is compromised and thus reduces repair in the long term.
In layman's terms, when oxygen is seemingly in plentiful supply the body reduces it's natural ability to absorb and distribute oxygen round the body. This is not a problem under normal conditions as it does not matter if the reserve capacity is reduced but during athletic duress when the requirement for oxygen increases substantially, the body cannot gear up to increase oxygen absorption in the lungs or oxygen carrying ability in the blood or oxygen utilisation in the muscles. This puts the cardiovascular system and especially the heart under much higher pressure to increase oxygen supply to muscles by increasing overall blood flow to lungs and muscles. This makes bleeding into the airway more likely and inevitably the blood supply to muscles is inadequate leading to increased lactate production and a greater risk of tying up. This compromises the heart muscle itself too as its own oxygen requirement is substantially raised.
There is also a reported low risk of CNS oxygen toxicity for pressures above 2 ATA. One study in Israel found that prolonged exposure to hyperoxia induces a reduction in the energetic efficiency of trained rats.
In Conclusion
Whilst ongoing HBOT and any other method that supplies extra oxygen to the body might seem to enhance performance, the effects are at best short-lived and limited to an initial period following the start of regular procedures. This initial improvement in performance and the reputation for short-term injury rehabilitiation may mean that as performance decreases over the long term and injuries and illness increases, the link may not be made as to the physiological adaptations to HBOT/oxygen-carrying compound being the root cause of the problem.
In order to increase the body's ability to absorb and utilise oxygen under athletic and injury circumstances, the ONLY way to safely achieve this with no long term side-effects is Simulated Altitude Training. There are no shortcuts to bypass this natural physiological adaptation which in addition to increased performance has increased healing, increased immunity and cardio-protective effects.
From a practical safety and financial perspective it is much safer to be working with a low oxygen environment that supports life than a high oxygen one that supports explosions!! SAT chambers and associated equipment is significantly cheaper with fewer restrictive regulations than similarly sized hyperbaric chambers. | 
