Hypoxic training for Masters?

The way I had it explained to be by my high school coach was this: Hypoxic training is used more to train the muscles how to become more efficient at using the oxygen it has, by depriving the muscles of oxygen, you break the muscles down and when they rebuild they are supposed to be more efficient than before...Same kind of result you get from weight lifting cycles. He never really said a whole lot about increasing lung capacity....

I have always looked at hypoxic sets as ways to simulate races, in that I'm hurting during a race. And if you do hypoxic sets that push or challenge you then you should be hurting a bit. Seems to make me tougher in my races.

Dan, I think SDK is a combination of both hydrodynamics and oxygen...especially on that last turn of a race.

Hypoxic training can be both beneficial and detrimental. Beneficial on the mentality side using it as a way to say I can do this but detrimental if your body is not getting enough oxygen. If you don't want to do it or don't feel comfortable about it then don't. The coach can't swim the workout for you and you need to be aware of what you can do.

Pretty incredible that he could do the last 25 of his 100 fly without a breath. Complete speculation on my part...but I'm betting he wouldn't pull that off without using the current generation of suits. I've always enjoyed hypoxic work...for me there is a "comfort level" with the discomfort so to speak. I find that I'm so used to the "feel" from oxygen deprivation in workouts that it doesn't enter my mind during a race.

I have always looked at hypoxic sets as ways to simulate races, in that I'm hurting during a race. And if you do hypoxic sets that push or challenge you then you should be hurting a bit. Seems to make me tougher in my races. I have never disputed the mental aspect of this. I think most here know that it is faster to breathe less in sprints. It is faster because the stroke is disrupted less by breathing. But sprinting a 50 and breathing 1 down, 2 back isn't easy for most (including me). But practicing it - and proving to ourselves that we CAN make it without passing out gives us the guts to do it in a race. So race simulation in practice is a good thing and that includes breath control. That is different however that saying as some do that hypoxic training actually produces a physiological benefit. Tjburk - I agree doing SDK well requires oxygen. And it is really hard to do at the end of the race. Hell it is hard to do at the beginning for me!

If you want to feel pain in practice as you might in a race, swim in practice as you might in a race. I'm an advocate of breathing, btw.

Thanks for the link; although disputing the adaptations we've mentioned, the article did not at all seem "anti-hypoxic" in nature. The whole "athletes can swim faster with more oxygen" of course ignores underwater SDK, which is faster than most surface swimming and is my own reason for any hypoxic training I do. In fact, I was pleased to see that Austin Staab seems to approach his underwater training similarly to me with his whole "at least 7 kicks off every wall" to build underwater endurance. His interview is here. Pretty incredible that he could do the last 25 of his 100 fly without a breath. I agree the article I cited was not anti-hypoxic. It was a bit dated (2003) and mentioned Counsilman's view. But it didn't provide any evidence that hypoxic training actually worked. Maglischo suggests that it doesn't work as claimed, and perhaps not at all. As for SDK - that is not an oxygen issue at all. It is a hydrodynamic issue. The evidence clearly shows that swimming underwater can be faster than swimming on the surface. Maglischo wasn't saying don't swim underwater. He was just saying that when you're swimming - it is probably better to swim faster with breathing than swimming slower with less breathing.

A little breath control works well in a 50 or 100 race. The less you breathe the better your balance.

As for SDK - that is not an oxygen issue at all. It is a hydrodynamic issue. The evidence clearly shows that swimming underwater can be faster than swimming on the surface. Maglischo wasn't saying don't swim underwater. He was just saying that when you're swimming - it is probably better to swim faster with breathing than swimming slower with less breathing. I think what Maglischo was saying was that you can build more lactate by swimming faster, and that generally requires more oxygen. That you do not build as much lactate in hypoxic sets, and so hypoxic sets are not a good way to build up lactate tolerance. But that seems like a pretty dated statement to me. Anyone who thinks that hard underwater kicking doesn't generate as much lactate as surface swimming isn't doing it right, IMO... Of course SDK is about hydrodynamics. And the longer you can stay under (up to 15m), the faster you can go in the race...if you can control your oxygen debt. Hence the hypoxic part. What you and other hypoxic nay-sayings are basically saying is that doing such work in practice doesn't prepare you for race conditions except psychologically (which isn't a small thing, btw). My own view is, why take a chance on training in a way UNLIKE the way I plan to race? And sometimes I'll take more underwater kicks than I plan to do in a race because, let's face it, one can rarely swim as hard in practice as in a race.