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On the use of mobile inflatable hypoxic marquees for sport-specific altitude training in team sports
  1. Olivier Girard1,
  2. Franck Brocherie2,
  3. Grégoire P Millet2
  1. 1Research and Education Centre, ASPETAR, Qatar Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Hospital, Doha, Qatar
  2. 2Department of Physiology, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, Institute of Sports Sciences, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
  1. Correspondence to Dr Olivier Girard, Research and Education Centre, ASPETAR, Qatar Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Hospital PO Box 29222, Doha, Qatar; oliv.girard{at}gmail.com

Abstract

Background/aim With the evolving boundaries of sports science and greater understanding of the driving factors in the human performance physiology, one of the limiting factors has now become the technology. The growing scientific interest on the practical application of hypoxic training for intermittent activities such as team and racket sports legitimises the development of innovative technologies serving athletes in a sport-specific setting.

Methods Description of a new mobile inflatable simulated hypoxic equipment.

Results The system comprises two inflatable units—that is, a tunnel and a rectangular design, each with a 215 m3 volume and a hypoxic trailer generating over 3000 Lpm of hypoxic air with FiO2 between 0.21 and 0.10 (a simulated altitude up to 5100 m). The inflatable units offer a 45 m running lane (width=1.8 m and height=2.5 m) as well as a 8 m×10 m dome tent. FiO2 is stable within a range of 0.1% in normal conditions inside the tunnel. The air supplied is very dry—typically 10–15% relative humidity.

Conclusions This mobile inflatable simulated hypoxic equipment is a promising technological advance within sport sciences. It offers an opportunity for team-sport players to train under hypoxic conditions, both for repeating sprints (tunnel configuration) or small-side games (rectangular configuration).

  • Altitude
  • Training
  • Exercise Physiology
  • Soccer
  • Elite Performance

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 3.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

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