It’s just a matter of time before you start carb-loading, purchasing your energy gels and bars, and laying out your kit full of nerves and excitement the night before…

We’re talking about the London Marathon – which is only 52 days away (at the time of writing this)! We imagine that you’re well into the hard yards of your training program, or at least getting some good miles in on a weekly basis. If you are or you’re not, we are able to help you regardless!

We run HIIT classes every morning, lunchtime and evening weekday. These are 30 mins in duration, and comprised of intervals of varying duration – ranging from 20 s all the way up to 3 mins. The objective is to physically and mentally push yourself during every interval, intentionally working to keep your heart rate in the higher zones. Further, we have our Run Club sessions on Monday and Wednesday evenings, which include intervals tailored to runners specifically and are 45 mins in duration. We have seen many of our clients achieve marathon times that they thought were initially unachievable, just through completing our classes through the week and a long endurance on the weekend. Therefore, we know this works – but understand that you want to see some more proof too!

A recent study prescribed interval training, consisting of an equal work:rest ratio at a target speed correlating to 85% heart rate maximum, 3x per week, for 6 weeks, to a group of experienced runners. Half of the group completed the training in an altitude chamber, and the other half in a normal environment. The results showed that those in the altitude group had an increase in time to exhaustion when running at 95% of VO2MAX after the training, with no change occurring in the normal environment group. Further, the ability to jump maximally was maintained for longer in the altitude group compared to the normal environment group, whom took less time to reach fatigue.

So what do these results mean? Essentially, training regularly in an altitude chamber will provide you with additional improvements above a standard training program. From what we have seen from our clientele, and the study mentioned above, you can improve your endurance (via increased time to exhaustion) and anaerobic capacity (via maximal jumps) which wouldn’t be achieved to the same extent elsewhere.

When it comes to the kick-ups along the road, or when you get past mile 21 and you’re feeling like you’re in the red, you want to be able to push through and make sure you achieve the time you are after. We’re not saying it will be easy, but training with us at The Altitude Centre will get you to the finish line in the best and quickest way!

Take a look at our classes here, and for any more information drop us an email at [email protected] or give us a call on 0207 193 1626.

Study details
Sanchez & Borrani (2018). Journal of Sports Sciences, doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2018.1434747