Trends
Oxygen — Who Needs It?

By Laura Hilgers

Sure, you could pull up your sea-level stakes and head to Boulder in search of that edge from altitude training. Or you could cruise down to Crunch Fitness in New York or Los Angeles and take a jog at 9,000 feet. The long line at Crunch and several other similarly fad-happy clubs these days isn't so much for the vaunted StairMaster, but for a turn on a treadmill enshrouded by an assemblage of clear walls. Step through a curtain of vinyl flaps not unlike your average shower-curtain liner and you've entered a hypoxic room, an eight-by-eight chamber pumped full of oxygen-deprived air (call 917-770-6059 for a chamber near you). But because that air is maintained at ambient pressure, an athlete experiences all the aerobic joys of high-altitude training with none of the irksome side-effects such as dehydration, headaches, and wooziness.

Whether you're training for the Leadville Trail 100 or prepping for a ski holiday in Summit County, working out in hypoxic conditions will assuredly help you acclimatize. But can weekly gasping sessions yield the same benefits as living high, which actually causes the cardiovascular system to increase its capacity to transport oxygen? "We don't even understand the benefits of real altitude training," says Jack Daniels, running coach at the State University of New York in Cortland, and an expert in the effects of altitude on athletes. "But people figure anything that hurts must be good for them — and working out at 9,000 feet certainly hurts."