Last updated: 2/22/20

Antonio Gonzalez, Tri Town Bicycles

Fundamental Principles

• Spending time and training at altitude will trigger an increase in the amount of oxygen-carrying red blood cells in your body.
• Increasing your red blood cell volume will enhance your endurance.
• Training/living at altitude can increase red blood cell count by ~100ml.

• In a study of microdosing approach to blood doping, a transfusion of 135 milliliters of red blood cells improved cycling time trial performance by about 5%. ^[1]

Pro:

• Increases red blood cell count (body’s ability to carry oxygen to the body). Approx increase after 6 weeks is 99ml

Con: ^[2]

• Hard to conduct blind studies of altitude training… as participants know they are at altitude and are expected to do better. May result in them training harder.  
• Has a more pronounced effect on less trained athletes.

• Elite athletes often don’t respond to red blood cell increases of ~99ml. Need a higher red blood cell increase for effect to be measurably.

• Often sleep and training are compromised for those who live at high altitude, so the benefit may be less than just training more at more modest altitude.