Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Acclimatization: the Human Body’s Greatest Defense.

Have you participated in any sport team back in high school? Or do you have any friends who are part of the school team and train hard everyday after school? Chances are you have probably heard of some athletes living at high altitude in order to attain a better cardiopulmonary system. This is called the “Live High, Train Low” theory. You might be wondering how this training strategy is utilized by athletes and how can our bodies are able to adapt and function to such a low oxygen level environment.

Lets take a look at the high altitude environment. For instance lets take a look at Alpine, Arizona which is located at an elevation of 8,000 feet (~2,500m). The amount of oxygen is significantly less than other places at sea level. The amount of O2 that is required for a runner to run at sea level is the equivalent amount of O2 that is required to an equivalent distance at Alpine, so you can see that it will take a lot more difficulty for the runner to run at Alpine compared to running at sea level.

The ideology of “Live High, Train Low” is to increase both the mass of hemoglobin and red blood cell volume in the body. Hemoglobin is the oxygen-transporter located in red blood cells. Oxygenated blood is pumped to muscles and organs all throughout the body in order to maintain daily bodily functions and activities, especially during periods of exercise.  Initially, when athletes first arrive at a high altitude environment they will begin to breathe harder and their heart rate will increase significantly in response to the scarce amount of O2 available, as their bodies are accustomed to sea level conditions where there is more available O2. 

Within a few days of living at high altitude the athlete’s body will begin to acclimate to the new environment, and as a result their breathing and heart rate will return to basal levels. According to ScienceDaily, a research team, led by B.D. Levine, worked with a group of track and cross-country runners to conduct an experiment to see how the “Live High, Train Low” training method affected their performance at different levels of high altitudes. The result of this study showed that the runners had an optimal acclimatization when living at altitude range between 2000m to 2500m.


It is amazing how we are capable of adapting to a range of different living environments. Having the ability of acclimatization is the human body’s greatest defense against abiotic disadvantages, such as global warming.

Posted by Yim Hui

12 comments:

  1. I enjoyed reading this blog post. I myself like to run and know that there is certainly differences in running even in New England winter vs. New England summer. Would you say that the same can be said about high altitudes as extreme heat? My mind immediately goes to the Summer Olympics in Athens '04 where athletes running the marathon event headed over to Greece earlier than most other athletes to complete their final training in that weather environment (and to get used to the thicker, more humid air). Since this is a warmer environment, would this be what you mean by the body acclimatizing to global warming?

    Taylor Schille

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    1. Thank you Taylor, and that is a really good example for acclimatization! I think human acclimatization occurs at a place where environment condition varies on a smaller scale. Like living at high altitude, the oxygen level is always low comparing to living at other low altitude places. So that human body can acclimatize to live with low oxygen level. And the weather changes from winters to summers vary a lot. Thus, I don't think it will be the same on this topic. On the other hand, I think extreme heat is also an environment driving force to human acclimatization, and even adaption. For example, according to Allen's rule, saying endothermic animals living near equator tend to have longer limbs in order to have a greater effect for reducing body heat. It shows that animals have been genetically adapted to live at a warmer environment.
      So based on these two examples, I believe our body will have a new acclimatization to global warming.

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  2. This is an awesome way to train! Though i've never tried it before, I love going on hikes and I can definitely feel the difference from the beginning of the hike to the end regarding breathing and heart rate. Do you know if temperature has a certain advantage to training as well, or are different altitudes the only known methods?

    -Samuel Ustayev

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    1. Thank you Samuel. For temperature, I don't think there is a better advantage for training. As you know, our bodies function at an optimal temperature around 37 degree Celsius, so running at either too high or too low temperature will not benefit our body. But I would suggest perform vigorous exercises at a cooler environment to help body temperature remain about 37 degree Celsius.

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  3. Awesome post! This is basically what is said about some athletes and sleeping in hyperbaric chambers. This gives them a better chance at winning long term races because of the amount of oxygen they are able to get to their muscles and organs during endurance races.

    Alex Sroczynski

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    1. I agree, Alex. However, this method is only a short-term boost unless the athlete has been adapted to low oxygen level environment for years.

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  4. This does indeed seem to be the best way to train. Some people try to gain the benefits from "training high and racing low" artificially by "blood doping": injecting themselves with red blood cells. Too bad this is totally illegal when running races!

    -JE

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    1. That's quite sad to hear, I hope they picked a proper to train their bodies.

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  5. This is really interesting to read about! It was after the 1968 Olympics that took place in Mexico City, Mexico, that people began to really look into altitude training. Mexico City is at an altitude of 2,240 meters, and it was evident this elevation had an impact on the athletes who were unaccustomed to such heights, and lower oxygen levels. There were many instances of below-record finishes. Now athletes use it to their advantage to train, but to reduce inconvenience and cost of traveling to these high altitude locations, scientists have developed artificial altitude environments to simulate such conditions.
    Posted by Kristen Whitehead

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    1. That's great to hear that. With the new technology, we can recreate these artificial training environment for athletes to train at their local gymnasiums instead of traveling thousands miles away.

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  6. Great post, I've read a lot about this type of training before. Acclimatization really is awesome. Do you know for how long runners will typically "train high" for marathons and other events?

    Posted by Kevin Barisano

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    1. That's why acclimatization is our greatest defense. It takes only a few days our bodies can get use to low oxygen level environment. However, typical athletes train there about a month or up to half a year to build up their systems for a longer retention period.

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