The Party of the Big Tent
Posted By Paul Kotik on 31 January 2005
As with any training technique, technology or hot sauce, a determined obsessive can, indeed, harm herself with her hypoxic tent. Humanity’s ability to walk into telephone poles is, apparently, a genetic endowment from our Neanderthal past. There are people who take it for granted that if a little of something is good, then more is always better. In the 1980’s, for example, several Dutch cyclists managed to kill themselves by pushing altitude training to the point where absurdly high EPO levels and hematocrit in excess of 70% made it impossible for a system and a pump designed to move a liquid around to function. Their blood was not really liquid any more, so they were very vulnerable to stroke, heart and lung failure. At 70% HCT, I would suppose their blood was the consistency of WD50 motor oil. All that to win a bicycle race.
But what of freediving ? If ever there were a sport that invited the use of hypoxic tents, this would seem to be it. We don’t need to train efficient breathing – we need to train no breathing. The cyclists, runners, skiers, mountaineers, and other endurance athletes have been bedding down in their hypoxic tents for years, and to good effect. Some champions and trainers in these sports take it for granted that an athlete who does not exploit this technology can no longer be considered a serious contender.
Hypoxic tents are becoming a part of the freediving scene, at the high-end, world champion level. There is every reason to expect that before long, they will become de rigeur at the championship level and popular among well-heeled recreational freedivers.
The next two installments in this series will get into the lowdown on hypoxic tents and freedivers, naming names, discussing training philosophies and reviewing several manufacturers’ offerings. So as not to ruin your evening, we won’t mention prices here: suffice to say these are not cheap toys.
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