TAKE YOUR TRAINING TO NEW HEIGHTS
The last time 220 tackled altitude training we led with the suggestive title ‘Two-mile high club’. Forgive the artistic licence, but at that height of around 3,200m you cannot go hard enough for long enough – you need to lower your sights by at least 500m. At least that’s the view of James Barber, lead performance specialist from The Altitude Centre in London. “We set the chamber to 2,700m,” he says. “We believe that’s the sweet spot to receive the benefits of training at altitude without impairing the quality. If we took it to an extreme of 5,000m, athletes would struggle to exercise.”
It’s a philosophy shared by two-time Olympic champion Alistair Brownlee, who has regularly spent a summer’s month in St Moritz, using the Swiss Alps resort as a trusted base to launch successful gold medal tilts at both London in 2012 and Rio four years later. “At about 1,800m it’s not too extreme and means I can still complete the really tough track sessions,” Brownlee says. “Going higher is for the off-season, not in July when I’m trying to get sharp for the Olympics.”
The point is that while training, living or sleeping at altitude – considered
