Danish swimmers Lotte Friis and Rikke Møller Pedersen are among the first Danish athletes to test the effect of hypoxic tents, as a mean to prepare for classic altitude camps, and prolong the effect of them. The Danish elite sport organization Team Danmark has criticized the use of hypoxic tents up until 2009, but has changed opinion now according to Lars Johansen sport physiologist at Team Danmark’s test center:
There is an opening that Danish athletes can use the legal technology that is available. We test it on a some named athletes, who we know have experience with altitude training.
It is a recognition that the technology is there, and that is can make the usefulness even better of the altitude training that is there anyway. It would be strange not to use the tents, when they can double the period with effect of altitude training on the oxygen transportation capacity.
Rikke Møller Pedersen says that it is tough to sleep in the tent, as it is very hot, very stuffy and because the pulse rate goes up. But on the other hand she says that the results show that she gets a lot out of sleeping in the tent, the weeks after altitude camp, which she hopes will give a little extra in the end.
Friis and Pedersen are not the first to use altitude tents, as for instance Australia’s Stephanie Rice put the enclosed picture of her tent on Twitpic last year, describing on Twitter how it works. Other well-known swimmers are for instance South Africa’s Roland Schoeman and USA’s Ed Moses, and our own Pál Joensen from the Faroe Islands.
Source for instance dr.dk and sporten.dk via SwimNews.dk.
