i live in san jose, ca.. which is relatively flat based on sea level wise. on past sunday, i rode the "Bike the West America's Most Beautiful bike ride - Lake Tahoe 72 miles" https://ridewithgps.com/routes/4886389
it's not difficult in terms of elevation gain (total about 4K+). we started from south lake tahoe which was nice. after eating lunch at north tahoe rest stop, there was a climb up further north. shortly after that, i started feeling out of breath.
i'm pretty fit i believe.. go to gym M-F, doing lots of cardio, swim, run, spinning, weights, etc. weigh in about 150lbs and 192 FTP (please don't laugh.. still trying to work on that).
my legs didn't cramp at all and felt like I can keep pushing. however, felt like my lung can't breathe in any more air. this is first time feeling this way.. usually it's the other way around where my legs will cramp up first before i feel out of breath.
my legs felt fresh and strong.. but felt like no lungs, shortness of breath and felt like I couldn't climb any faster. was i hyperventilating or suffering altitude sickness?
or does that mean I'm not training enough cardio? or is it due to higher elevation that I'm not use to?
much appreciate for any help and tips on training you guys can provide.
rui
Altitude sickness?
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Altitude affects each person in a unique way. Some people can handle it better than others. So there's no general guideline when it comes to altitude sickness. A very fit person can be severely affected by it while an unfit person might not be. So don't feel bad in any way if you are more susceptible to altitude sickness.
When I used to live in CA I have done the Eastern Sierra double century. I never got very sick however I always felt flat or 'unfit' when doing that ride. It's very likely I was suffering from a mild form of altitude sickness. Now I live in CO and my house sits at 6,000' elevation, going up higher in altitude has definitely not been a problem. I have done Mount Evans and Pikes Peak and never felt 'flat' or hyperventilate. My body felt great although I can clearly see that my power output has dropped somewhat after 10,000' in elevation.
Unless you plan to do more high altitude rides I wouldn't worry about it. People that compete in high altitudes on a regular basis can get acclimated in a hypoxic tent such as this one.
When I used to live in CA I have done the Eastern Sierra double century. I never got very sick however I always felt flat or 'unfit' when doing that ride. It's very likely I was suffering from a mild form of altitude sickness. Now I live in CO and my house sits at 6,000' elevation, going up higher in altitude has definitely not been a problem. I have done Mount Evans and Pikes Peak and never felt 'flat' or hyperventilate. My body felt great although I can clearly see that my power output has dropped somewhat after 10,000' in elevation.
Unless you plan to do more high altitude rides I wouldn't worry about it. People that compete in high altitudes on a regular basis can get acclimated in a hypoxic tent such as this one.
pdlpsher1: thanks for the tip. i was somewhat shocked when my coworkers whom barely climbs dropped me and was still able to talk to me during the climb. it felt surreal to me. chatting with him at the following rest stop.. he said he felt great and didn't think he had the legs to climb that qucik. but then again... maybe it's youth vs. old man like me. i plan to do the tahoe ride again next year with some other buddies that couldn't make it this year. would climbing higher help or climb when it's colder in temp to simulate the elevation differential?
You're welcome. No, climbing higher wouldn't help. To get your body acclimated you need to sleep higher. And not just for a day or two. You would need at least three days to get acclimated. I would suggest that you not bother by going to Tahoe three days earlier. It's just not worth the time nor the expense. There could be some medicine you could take to help you avoid severe symptoms.
pdlpsher1 wrote: No, climbing higher wouldn't help. To get your body acclimated you need to sleep higher.
Actually, the motto is, "Climb high, sleep low." (First Google reference: http://www.mountainprofessor.com/acclimatization.html)
Mountaineers often ascend higher than their intended camp, then drop back down for the night. This enables them to build red blood cells while exerting themselves at the higher elevation, then descend before they can get sick or suffer the debilitating of effects of altitude. I used this myself while trekking through Nepal and the Himalayas.
Personally, I don't think Tahoe is even what I would consider "elevation," but as stated, it affects us all differently. Our bodies also can change, and whereas we have no problems early we might feel the altitude more as we age or spend more time at upper elevation. Hell, even late in life, Sir Edmund Hillary couldn't go into the high mountains because his body could no longer stand it.
I think if you wanted to prepare yourself better, a great way would be to:
1. Arrive three days early. This is plenty of time to acclimate to the altitude, especially if you are riding and training (or even running/walking).
2. If possible, certainly go to a higher elevation than your intended destination. Do your workouts there, then drop back down in the evening.
3. Climb high, sleep low. You could do this a few times and be well rewarded.
"Deserve's got nothing to do with it." William Munny
FWIW altitude sickness is usually experienced at over about 2500m, so you may have been getting the early symptoms.
It could also have been a mild pollen allergy. Moving area can quite often trigger allergies you never knew you had.
As an aside, some colleagues of mine did Kilimanjaro a few years ago and the only person to experience altitude sickness was the hardened ultra marathon runner (thinks nothing of doing two 75+ km runs over a weekend).
The slightly overweight smokers/drinkers/party animals just enjoyed the view.
It could also have been a mild pollen allergy. Moving area can quite often trigger allergies you never knew you had.
As an aside, some colleagues of mine did Kilimanjaro a few years ago and the only person to experience altitude sickness was the hardened ultra marathon runner (thinks nothing of doing two 75+ km runs over a weekend).
The slightly overweight smokers/drinkers/party animals just enjoyed the view.
One of my research foci is high altitude physiology and medicine, so I am at least a bit equipped to offer some ideas, even though I am far from a world renowned expert like my colleagues.
not in any particular order, and a bit long winded:
1. Boysa is correct that the mountaineering motto is "climb high, sleep low", however a lot of data actually support the opposite strategy- at least for cycling, running, and other endurance sports, where you are using the altitude exposure to improve performance, rather than acclimatize. This is because you can get the acclimatization benefits of living at altitude by "sleeping high" but one's work out and exercise capacity is not limited by the low ambient oxygen tension in the air. See Ben Levine's work (for example, Levine BD, Stray-Gundersen J. “Living high-training low”: effect of moderate-altitude acclimatization with low-altitude training on performance. J Appl Physiol 1997;83:102–12.). However a recent very clever study does contest his findings (Siebenmann C, et al. “Live high–train low” using normobaric hypoxia: a double-blinded, placebo-controlled study. J Appl Physiol 2012;112:106–17.), and note that he is talking primarily about the best way to enhance performance at low altitude, not high.
That being said, (1) climbing and mountaineering is different (at least in part because attaining a high elevation is part and parcel of the goal), so the climb high, sleep low strategy is a way of limiting the ill effects of very high altitude exposure while still attaining the summit, and (2) longer term high altitude exposure appears to improve the limitations of effort that may be induced through mechanisms in the brain (see a paper from our group: Goodall S, et al. AltitudeOmics: exercise-induced supraspinal fatigue is attenuated in healthy humans after acclimatization to high altitude. Acta Physiol (Oxf) 2014;210:875–88.)
2. What the OP appears to have suffered was not altitude sickness per se (the symptoms he describe do not meet the criteria for Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS), or high altitude cerebral or pulmonary edema), but rather he sound like he was suffering from a greater limitation of oxygen utilization at altitude than his companions. The partial pressure of oxygen decreases as you ascend, of course, so there is less O2 available to feed the metabolic processes of exercise. There are genetically determined variances in how each person is able to deal with this, and the parameters are numerous- oxygen extraction ratios, mitochondrial and capillary density in the muscle, diffusion gradients in the lungs- lots of things that can contribute to how well an individual performs at altitude. Note that this is quite different from individual susceptibility to AMS, which also has genetic determinants. Even something like your hemoglobin level, if it is a bit lower than average, will play a role.
3. Yes, there is medication to take, but its for AMS, and is not specifically used to improve athletic performance at altitude, although if that is limited by AMS it may help, and there is some very good evidence that it may improve oxygenation and both pulmonary and skeletal muscle gas exchange (see a very interesting paper from Peter Wagner's group: Jonk AM, et al. Effect of acetazolamide on pulmonary and muscle gas exchange during normoxic and hypoxic exercise. The Journal of Physiology 2007;579:909–21.). Acetazolamide (prescription only, 125mg BID) is the usual AMS dose (lower than in that paper) and will reduce the symptoms of AMS and accelerate the mechanisms of acclimatization.
4. If you were suffering from AMS symptoms 3 days at altitude will help- in most people their AMS symptoms will go away within that time period. But you need longer to acclimatize. See our paper (Subudhi AW, et al. AltitudeOmics: the integrative physiology of human acclimatization to hypobaric hypoxia and its retention upon reascent. Reddy H, ed. PLoS ONE 2014;9:e92191.) for lots of details, but note that the altitude in the AltitudeOmics series of studies was much higher that Tahoe- by a factor of more than 2 (we were at 5300m, or 17,300ft)!
not in any particular order, and a bit long winded:
1. Boysa is correct that the mountaineering motto is "climb high, sleep low", however a lot of data actually support the opposite strategy- at least for cycling, running, and other endurance sports, where you are using the altitude exposure to improve performance, rather than acclimatize. This is because you can get the acclimatization benefits of living at altitude by "sleeping high" but one's work out and exercise capacity is not limited by the low ambient oxygen tension in the air. See Ben Levine's work (for example, Levine BD, Stray-Gundersen J. “Living high-training low”: effect of moderate-altitude acclimatization with low-altitude training on performance. J Appl Physiol 1997;83:102–12.). However a recent very clever study does contest his findings (Siebenmann C, et al. “Live high–train low” using normobaric hypoxia: a double-blinded, placebo-controlled study. J Appl Physiol 2012;112:106–17.), and note that he is talking primarily about the best way to enhance performance at low altitude, not high.
That being said, (1) climbing and mountaineering is different (at least in part because attaining a high elevation is part and parcel of the goal), so the climb high, sleep low strategy is a way of limiting the ill effects of very high altitude exposure while still attaining the summit, and (2) longer term high altitude exposure appears to improve the limitations of effort that may be induced through mechanisms in the brain (see a paper from our group: Goodall S, et al. AltitudeOmics: exercise-induced supraspinal fatigue is attenuated in healthy humans after acclimatization to high altitude. Acta Physiol (Oxf) 2014;210:875–88.)
2. What the OP appears to have suffered was not altitude sickness per se (the symptoms he describe do not meet the criteria for Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS), or high altitude cerebral or pulmonary edema), but rather he sound like he was suffering from a greater limitation of oxygen utilization at altitude than his companions. The partial pressure of oxygen decreases as you ascend, of course, so there is less O2 available to feed the metabolic processes of exercise. There are genetically determined variances in how each person is able to deal with this, and the parameters are numerous- oxygen extraction ratios, mitochondrial and capillary density in the muscle, diffusion gradients in the lungs- lots of things that can contribute to how well an individual performs at altitude. Note that this is quite different from individual susceptibility to AMS, which also has genetic determinants. Even something like your hemoglobin level, if it is a bit lower than average, will play a role.
3. Yes, there is medication to take, but its for AMS, and is not specifically used to improve athletic performance at altitude, although if that is limited by AMS it may help, and there is some very good evidence that it may improve oxygenation and both pulmonary and skeletal muscle gas exchange (see a very interesting paper from Peter Wagner's group: Jonk AM, et al. Effect of acetazolamide on pulmonary and muscle gas exchange during normoxic and hypoxic exercise. The Journal of Physiology 2007;579:909–21.). Acetazolamide (prescription only, 125mg BID) is the usual AMS dose (lower than in that paper) and will reduce the symptoms of AMS and accelerate the mechanisms of acclimatization.
4. If you were suffering from AMS symptoms 3 days at altitude will help- in most people their AMS symptoms will go away within that time period. But you need longer to acclimatize. See our paper (Subudhi AW, et al. AltitudeOmics: the integrative physiology of human acclimatization to hypobaric hypoxia and its retention upon reascent. Reddy H, ed. PLoS ONE 2014;9:e92191.) for lots of details, but note that the altitude in the AltitudeOmics series of studies was much higher that Tahoe- by a factor of more than 2 (we were at 5300m, or 17,300ft)!
boysa wrote:pdlpsher1 wrote: No, climbing higher wouldn't help. To get your body acclimated you need to sleep higher.
Actually, the motto is, "Climb high, sleep low." (First Google reference: http://www.mountainprofessor.com/acclimatization.html)
Mountaineers often ascend higher than their intended camp, then drop back down for the night. This enables them to build red blood cells while exerting themselves at the higher elevation, then descend before they can get sick or suffer the debilitating of effects of altitude. I used this myself while trekking through Nepal and the Himalayas.
Personally, I don't think Tahoe is even what I would consider "elevation," but as stated, it affects us all differently. Our bodies also can change, and whereas we have no problems early we might feel the altitude more as we age or spend more time at upper elevation. Hell, even late in life, Sir Edmund Hillary couldn't go into the high mountains because his body could no longer stand it.
I think if you wanted to prepare yourself better, a great way would be to:
1. Arrive three days early. This is plenty of time to acclimate to the altitude, especially if you are riding and training (or even running/walking).
2. If possible, certainly go to a higher elevation than your intended destination. Do your workouts there, then drop back down in the evening.
3. Climb high, sleep low. You could do this a few times and be well rewarded.
I thought the most recent research suggested live high train low because when you sleep overnight at high altitude your body can get used to the hypoxic environment and generate increase red blood cells and haemoglobin which increase your aerobic capacity. You then go lower to train in order to maintain the same intensity in your training sessions.
JScycle, you are correct (see my post right before yours), however both approaches are right in different circumstances- the conflict is explained by what the objective is. In the case of climbers, they need to attain ever higher elevations in order to be able to acclimate to those increasingly very high altitudes to make the summit, while at the same time limiting their exposure to hypoxia in order to prevent HAPE and HACE. Thus, climb high and sleep low. But for cyclists, who are seeking to improve speed, endurance and overall athletic performance at more modest altitudes you can train more intensely where the oxygen tensions are higher, and adapt to altitude during rest periods. Thus, sleep high (within limits), train low.
yve srtarted at 192 FTP, at lake tahoes elevation this will have dropped by over 10% so you'll be down to below 170 FTP before you get to any extra altitude.
altitude sickness can start this low, but its unusual, bigest indicatior I belive is heart rate nopt returning to somthing sensibl;e once you stop exhertion, that and nosepleads/ coughig up blood but its getting fairly severe then.
altitude sickness can start this low, but its unusual, bigest indicatior I belive is heart rate nopt returning to somthing sensibl;e once you stop exhertion, that and nosepleads/ coughig up blood but its getting fairly severe then.
joec, you are mixing up different things. Nosebleeds at altitude occur primarily because of the dry air- not usually related to AMS. Coughing up blood is NOT primary AMS- it occurs with severe high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) and pulmonary hypertension. Its a medical emergency, and mandates immediate descent.
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A person's ability to deal with altitude may also be genetic (but I'm not sure).
I have no issues going from 0 to 12,000 ft within 6 hours, but I have friends that struggle at 5,000 ft.
I have no issues going from 0 to 12,000 ft within 6 hours, but I have friends that struggle at 5,000 ft.
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i've never had the problem, that i'm aware of, but back in june i rode the vaujany oisans sportive with campo bicicleta. it was my first alps experience and when i arrived in the alps paul kneppers was careful to insist we aclimate slowly doing a short spin on the first day and build up to longer climbs and get used to the altitude. what ever he did worked wonders and i had no issues riding at the higher altitudes having some of my my best rides later that week and ultimately race day.
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