UKA/London Marathon Altitude Programme ... - Fidal Lombardia

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8 | UKA/London MARAthon (LM) ALtItUde tRAInIng CAMP AnnUAL RePoRt 5. ITEN, KENyA – AUTUMN/WINTEr 2010/11 Located at 2385m (8000ft) above sea level in the escarpment of the Rift Valley, the majority of the Kenyan athletes are born within a 50-mile radius of the town, whilst estimates put about 800 plus elite athletes from around the world training in Iten. The main autumn/winter camp operated in Kenya for 4-6 weeks through October-November 2010. The group consisted of World Class Programme, Futures, GB&NI Team athletes and a number of developing athletes linked to the National Performance Centre at Loughborough and Regional Centres, such as Birmingham and St.Mary’s and other talented athletes around the UK. Autumn/Winter 2010: • 26 x Athletes (i.e. Mo Farah, Marilyn Okoro, helen Clitheroe, Charlene Thomas, Kate Avery, James Brewer, Andrew Osagie, and Colin McCourt) • 1 x Camp manager • 5 x Personal coaches • 3 x UKA Coaches (George Gandy, John Nuttall and Alasdair donaldson) • 3 x Physiotherapists • 2 x Exercise Physiologists • 1 x Doctor • 1 x Soft Tissue Therapist Note: not all support staff are there for a four week period, the staffing support is split across the camp. Winter (Jan – April) 2011: Continuing on from a successful altitude camp pre Christmas in Iten, there was considerable interest in the January camp, much more than initially anticipated. This was in part due to the positive feedback and key performance indicators shown by athletes who had previously attended the camps and our ability to fund more places with London Marathon funding. Details are below of the Jan – April camp, detailing the breakdown of camp personnel and some of the key athletes. 24 x Athletes (i.e. Hannah England, Marilyn Okoro, Lee Merrien, Charlene Thomas, helen Clitheroe, James Brewer, Andrew Osagie, Ben Whitby, Andy Baddeley and Colin McCourt) • 1 x Camp manager • 6 x Personal coaches • 2 x UKA Coaches (George Gandy, John Nuttall) • 3 x Physiotherapists • 1 x Exercise Physiologists • 1 x Soft Tissue Therapist Helen Clitheroe in particular returned to the UK in outstanding form and almost immediately reduced her 3000m best to 8:39.81 to go sub- 8:40 for the first time. She went to the European Indoor Championships ranked number one on the continent and didn’t disappoint, racing to gold and her first ever major Championship medal. A number of athletes on the camp sent emails containing positive feedback (see appendices).
6. CASE STUdy: hELEN CLIThErOE, IMpACT OF ALTITUdE TrAINING ON hEr phySIOLOGICAL prOFILE. Some of the physiological factors that are known to be related to endurance running performance include: maximal O2 uptake (VO2max), running economy, and the fractional utilisation of the VO2max (which is itself related to markers of blood lactate accumulation during exercise, including the lactate threshold (LT) and lactate turn-point (LTP). Physiological laboratory testing measures these factors and repeated testing provides information on progression of these key markers as well assessment of recent training prescription (including the impact of training practices such as altitude training). This brief case study of Helen Clitheroe is to provide a specific example of the impact altitude training can have on the physiology of an athlete with particular reference to racing performance. Altitude training From a physiological perspective the main benefit of altitude training is to increase the number of red blood cells (haemoglobin mass). Red blood cells are the vehicle by which oxygen is delivered round the body to the working muscles; in general terms the more red blood cells the greater the aerobic work capacity. For example an increase in haemoglobin concentration of 0.3 g/ dL will theoretically result in a 1% improvement in VO2max. There are also other physiological benefits from living and/or exercising in a low oxygen environment. For example altitude training can generally enhance many other key aerobic elements such as increased capillary number and length, increased number of mitochondria, improved blood lactate removal and improved muscle buffer capacity to name a few. physiology of helen Clitheroe Helen has had physiological testing completed for a number of years that consists of a warm up of 10 min followed by a multi-stage incremental treadmill protocol, typically involving 5-7 exercise stages, each of 3 min duration. The test is designed to monitor progression in key variables (see above) and also to generate Blood (La) (mM) 10 8 6 4 2 0 Table 1: Key physiological markers over a series of tests. UKA/London MARAthon (LM) ALtItUde tRAInIng CAMP AnnUAL RePoRt | 9 accurate training zones by measuring blood lactate concentration, heart rate and oxygen uptake throughout the test. Shifting the LT and/or LTP to a higher speed is an important goal of endurance training. The lactate concentration at any speed should be lower (downward shift in the lactate curve) and the LT and LTP should occur at higher speeds (rightward shift in the lactate curve) with endurance training. In addition, HR should be lower for a given speed (downward shift in HR curve). Figure 2 and Table 1 detail (La)-Mar 11 (La)-Dec 10 (La)-Jan 08 (La)-Mar 07 HR-Mar 11 HR-Dec 10 HR-Jan 08 HR-Mar 07 13 14 15 16 17 Speed (km/h) 18 19 20 21 Figure 2: Aerobic profile over a series of tests. Test: 1 2 3 4 date: Mar-11 dec-10 Jan-08 Mar-07 Body mass (kg): 57.4 58.4 59.0 58.9 LT (km/h): 17.0 16.5 16.0 16.0 LTP (km/h): 19.0 18.5 18.0 18.0 Economy (mL O2/kg/km): 214 207 199 199 VO2max (mL/kg/min): 76 73 70 66 200 150 100 50 0 Heart Rate (beats/min)
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UKA/London Marathon Altitude Programme ... - Fidal Lombardia

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