Effect of intermittent hypoxic intervention on aerobic and anaerobic performance of the elite athletes

Abstract

Objective: The use of hypoxic training has increased to improve the performance of endurance athletes in recent years. Due to not having the suitable conditions and environment for each athlete and team, intermittent hypoxic training has been noted. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of intermittent hypoxic training on aerobic and anaerobic performance of elite athletes.
 Materials and Methods: A total of 40 elite distance athletes were taken into our study and divided into two groups as hypoxia and normoxia. While using the intermittent intervention for the hypoxic group 5 minutes intervals for a total of 1 hour per day, 3 days per week for a-4 week period, the same normoxic training protocol was used for the normoxic group. Aerobic and anaerobic performance parameters were measured with venous blood samples of the athletes in the first three days before and after hypoxic intervention.
 Results: When the hypoxia and normoxia groups were evaluated before and after intermittent hypoxia, there was no statistically change in aerobic and anaerobic performance values (p>0.05).
 Conclusion: We observed that there was not a statistical change of intermittent hypoxic intervention for the performances of hypoxic group. However, the more dose and the duration of hypoxic training, the more amount of performance gain can be achieved.