Elite runners have known about the benefits – and challenges – of training at high altitude for decades. It’s one of the reasons cited for East African dominance over the marathon: many of its best runners were born and raised more than 2,000m above sea level.
Iten, which is perhaps the most famous training locale in the world, stands 2,400m above sea level. And as any flatlander who’s gone there to train will tell you, up there, exercise feels markedly harder.
It’s a fate that now awaits the England football team. Last night's victory over DR Congo has set up a mouth-watering tie with joint hosts Mexico at the intimidating Azteca Stadium, which stands 2,240m above sea level.
James Barber, lead performance specialist at the Altitude Centre in London, explains the unique challenges of exercising at such heights.
‘It’s all about oxygen,’ he says. ‘Your availability of oxygen is much lower when you’re at high altitude. Literally, the molecules that make up the air are more spaced out so every time you take a breath, you’re taking in fewer molecules of oxygen. Less oxygen in the air means less oxygen going into the lungs, blood, muscles and brain, all of which makes exercising much harder.’
When it Kicks In
You don’t need to be scaling Mount Everest to feel the effects. In fact, Barber references data from elite athletes in Australia which found that being as little as 600m above sea level may make a difference, particularly to elite athletes.
What to read next
‘When they set up the Australian Institute of Sport, in Canberra, they thought that all the VO2 max testing kit was broken because everyone was testing about 5-6% lower than they had done at their respective regional institutes of sport,’ says Barber. ‘Then they realised that Canberra is 600m above sea-level – and that seemed to be enough to have an impact.’
That’s a relatively extreme example. In most of the literature, says Barber, you find that VO2 max – which is the amount of oxygen that the body can use while exercising – is reduced 6-7% every 1,000 metres, starting at 1,500 metres. So, by the time you get to 2,500m – only a shade higher than the Azteca Stadium – VO2 max would drop by 6-7%. If you were to go higher still, to 3,500m, VO2 max would likely drop by 10-14%, and so on.
‘It’ll definitely make a big difference,’ says Barber, on exercising at 2,240m. ‘Linking it back to running, in 1968, we had the Mexico City Olympics. The winning times in the 5000m and 10,000m were 6-8% slower than they were in the Games either side of that [in Tokyo and Munich, respectively]. It does have a really big impact.’
Football, in some ways, presents more challenges than running. There’s the endurance side of things, of course – the potential of exercising for 90 or even 120 minutes. Then there’s the repeated sprints. ‘Footballers have to sprint, recover a little bit, then sprint again – and that’s much harder to do at high altitude,’ says Barber.
Acclimatisation Period
So, how long does it take for people to adapt to these conditions? ‘It’s quite individual and the sports scientists will have to balance that across the squad,’ says Barber. ‘Some players may adapt really quickly, while others may take longer.’
Barber says that the players might get some acclimatisation within three to five days. ‘But red blood cells take 90 days to mature,’ he adds. ‘That’s why, when people go on altitude training camps, they’re there for three or four weeks at a time to realise the full benefits. So, England might see some benefits if they can be up there for a couple of days in advance. But, logistically, the tournament makes it so difficult for any team going up to Mexico City to get in any real adaptations.’
While being fit is a prerequisite for being an international footballer, it’s not particularly protective in terms of adapting to high altitude. ‘Sometimes the fittest people suffer the most at high altitude,’ says Barber.
So what can be done if you need to fast-track your ability to exercise at high altitude? Concentrate on the small details. ‘They’re going to have to pay special attention to hydration and nutrition. Because recovery from training sessions will be harder – and it will be harder if they win tonight and go straight up to high altitude.’
As for the Mexican players, they have two distinct advantages. ‘They’ve either been based at high altitude now long enough to adapt, or they were born at high altitude,’ says Barber. ‘We know that high-altitude natives have baked into their DNA some advantages at altitude. So that’s definitely an advantage and you can see that through their record at the Azteca. There’s a reason for that, frankly.’
Rick Pearson is the senior editor at Runner’s World UK. He’s been with the brand since 2017 and loves testing PB-friendly shoes for on and off road. Rick is a sub-three marathoner, 4-something miler and once completed 100 miles in less than 24 hours. He occasionally likes to remind people of these feats on the Runner’s World podcast, which he co-hosts.
Rick’s running CV also includes racing a steam train over 14 miles (he won, narrowly) and a horse over a marathon (he lost, comfortably).
