I recently attended the 53rd annual American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) Conference in Denver, Colorado from May 31st to June 3rd, 2006. While there, I attended a two-hour symposium on altitude and hypoxic training featuring five world leading experts in the area, namely Drs. Ben Levine (Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas), Chris Gore (Australian Institute of Sport), Games Stray-Gundersen (University of Utah), Randall Wilber (US Olympic Committee), and Stephen Muza (US Army Research Institute)(see symposium outline- Appendix 1). Between them, they have over 60+ scientific publications on the effects of altitude, training at altitude and the Live High- Train Low protocol (LHTL). What each of these presenters did during the symposium was provide a clear and concise overview on approximately a decade of research, which I hope to adequately reiterate below. But instead of citing every individual study throughout the review, I have provided a reference list for the enthusiastic reader at the end that comprises some of the more pertinent references (see: 1-65). I also hope to provide some future ideas and questions that I have formulated and discussed with colleagues. It should also be pointed out that there is ample evidence to show that living and training at altitude does increase endurance performance in competitions at altitude. However, to date, there is still no clear and consistent evidence showing the same increases in performances in competitions at sea level (where the vast majority of competitions are located). This lack of a clear effect of altitude training on sea-level performance likely has to do with a myriad of potential issues such as, training load, iron status, protocols and individual responses and variability. This review will attempt to unravel some of these misconceptions and shed light on a complicated area of sport performance.
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