Work in Progress: Altitude Training and Adaptation in Swimming, by Dr Martin Truijens

By Oene Rusticus, Swimming World European correspondent

THE NETHERLANDS, January 30. IT is a remarkable accomplishment, an Olympic swim coach who finishes his PhD on the eve of "London 2012". Dr. Martin Truijens completed his Doctoral Thesis "Work in Progress: Altitude Training and Adaptation in Swimming" at the Faculty of Human Movement Sciences of the VU in Amsterdam.

Since 2005, he coached the swimmers of the National Swimming Institute in Amsterdam. Truijens was present in Beijing where his swimmer Femke Heemskerk won a gold medal with the women's 400m freestyle relay team. Five of his swimmers already qualified for London, and there are still two qualifying events left for the rest of his team.

Truijens: "Coaching this team is an incredible learning experience that certainly made my journey more interesting and above all, made me find out that it is exactly here, on the border of science and practice, where several disciplines come together, where I feel best."

In his academic career he published numerous articles in the last decade on the effect of high altitude training on performance in swimming. He collaborated in two major international studies on altitude bringing together many of the world experts in this field (among others Prof. BD Levine, Prof C. Gore and Prof. F.A. Rodriguez). His work is published in the Journal of Applied Physiology and recently a book chapter in the World book of Swimming was added to the list.

His thesis gives a unique insight into the practical use of science in swimming. Although science itself may not make champions, scientific knowledge can sure help to support the process by formulating general guidelines that are likely to work for the athlete. Based on the available scientific evidence as presented in his thesis, the following rules of thumb can be given with regard to altitude and swimming:
− hypoxic exercise (as in "living high-training high" or "living low-training high") does not appear to provide any physiologic advantage over normoxic exercise, regardless of training intensity. Moreover, absolute workload and oxygen flux are reduced suggesting that, if anything, hypoxic exercise might be detrimental to sea level performance.

− although the conductance of low-moderate, short duration (less than 3 weeks) altitude training camps ("living high-training high") is certainly useful for performance at altitude, there is no objective evidence for "living high-training high" in order to improve sea level performance in highly trained swimmers.

− approximately 2,500m of altitude, for at least 12 hours per day, for a minimum of 3 to 4 weeks appears necessary to acquire a robust acclimatization response (primarily red cell volume) with lower risk of altitude disturbances in the majority of athletes.

− the optimal altitude training strategy for improvements in sea level performances is likely to be the "living high-training low" strategy, in which one "lives high" (i.e. 2,500m) to get the benefits of altitude acclimatization and "trains low" (1,250m or less) to avoid the detrimental effects of hypoxic exercise. Whether the performance benefits would be equally large for swimmers compared to cyclists and runners remains questionable and requires further research.

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