Supplemental Oxygen

I get a lot of questions about my running training, specifically about my supplemental oxygen training. Last year, National Geographic aired their production “The Incredible Human Machine” which featured my supplemental oxygen training. As promised, here is a full explanation of this high tech training technique.

The Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs is located at around 6200 ft of altitude. That’s high enough that when I leave for a few weeks, I can feel the effects when I come back (and I grew up at this altitude). For years, we have known about the positive effects of living at altitude. When the human body is subject to the reduced oxygen of an altitude environment, it responds by increasing production of oxygen carrying red blood cells. A highly-trained athlete can expect to increase their red blood cell count by 15-20% when living at altitude. This assists the athlete in circulating oxygen to the body during workouts in a hypoxic (less oxygen) environment. But the real benefit is when you go to sea level. Because your body does not instantly revert to the lower number of red blood cells needed for the oxygen rich environment, you essentially have an artificially high ability to carry oxygen within your bloodstream. For me, this makes it possible to run and swim faster when I go to sea level. The effects are similar to blood doping (inserting red blood cells into the bloodstream via IV), but the practice of blood doping is both illegal and dangerous. Living at altitude is not.

There has always been one problem with training at altitude--it is impossible to train as fast as you can at sea level. It seems that no matter how much your body tries to compensate for the altitude by increasing red blood cells, you never feel the same at altitude. So for years there has been debate about whether the benefits of altitude, higher oxygen carrying capacity, outweigh the downside, lower speed in practice. Until now…

Recently some innovative sports scientists came up with a way for athletes to have it both ways. At the lab at the Olympic Training Center, we have supplemental oxygen machines. These contraptions, custom made with random parts including weather balloons, feed athletes 62% oxygen saturated air, roughly similar to the effects of training at sea level. I use supplemental oxygen (nicknamed SO2) training twice a week in running. With a gas mask on my face, I run on a specially designed treadmill that is wider, longer, and faster than any commercially available unit. In the synthetic, oxygen rich, sea level environment, I am able to push my body much harder than normal for 6200ft. This allows me to train race pace and faster frequently. In turn, my body is able to learn the mechanics of running at race pace, the muscles become adjusted to firing at that intensity, and my brain starts to accept that I am capable of running sea level times. This enables me to perform at a much higher level when I descend to sea level for a competition… for instance the Olympics.

SO2 training is a difficult way to train and has some downsides. First, it is expensive. I suck down almost $50 worth of air each session. It also requires two people to assist in running the apparatus and monitoring my heart rate, effort, and mechanics. As an athlete, it is pretty easy to get bored running on a treadmill for upwards of two hours. It is also extremely painful. The bodily chemical reaction that burns oxygen and carbohydrates produces lactic acid which floods your bloodstream. The more oxygen, the more lactic acid your body produces.

All in all, I think SO2 training gives me a big advantage in running. It gives a pretty big confidence boost to know that you have the physiology and endurance of an altitude athlete but the speed of a sea-level athlete.