Hypoxic Advice/Workouts--Not Your opinion of Hypox Efficacy
Former Member
Discusing Hypoxic sets with a freind, can anyone suggest a good hypoxic set for me.
I'm doing 3500-4000 3x a week and a short sprint workout on the weekend. I will not likely add another day to my schedule.
What's a good starting workout, and also where in my workout should I do this? Do you mix it up e.g. hard interval set then a hypox or hypox and then a pace set.
I am guessing mixing is a good thing but what's a good start point for a set and intervals for this? BR and FR being my stronger strokes.
I never really questioned its value until I read some research which said that breath-holding does not produce any desirable physiological adaptation. All it does is result in an increase of CO2 -- which simply makes you want to breathe more.
Isn't that precisely the sort of thing it's supposed to help with? Several people here have posted the problem of holding your streamline on the last pull-out on a 200. One of our coaches a couple years ago said it was really helpful on the last BR pullout of a 400IM. Our current coach stresses it for that reason as well. There's really plenty of oxygen there for your muscles, but you have to train yourself to resist/fight the urge to breathe that the CO2 buildup gives you. The "piano on your back" I think others have called it. How are you going to do that in a race if you never practice it during practice?
Skip Montanaro
I never really questioned its value until I read some research which said that breath-holding does not produce any desirable physiological adaptation. All it does is result in an increase of CO2 -- which simply makes you want to breathe more.
Isn't that precisely the sort of thing it's supposed to help with? Several people here have posted the problem of holding your streamline on the last pull-out on a 200. One of our coaches a couple years ago said it was really helpful on the last BR pullout of a 400IM. Our current coach stresses it for that reason as well. There's really plenty of oxygen there for your muscles, but you have to train yourself to resist/fight the urge to breathe that the CO2 buildup gives you. The "piano on your back" I think others have called it. How are you going to do that in a race if you never practice it during practice?
Skip Montanaro
