Thanks to Ben Maher for the pics and to Ben and Amanda Ellison of The Third Space for organising.
Today I managed to run a mountain or two all from a treadmill in central London.
It wasn’t just that the treadmill was set to rolling hills either – thanks to my pal Ben, I got the chance today to run in the hypoxic chamber at posh Soho gym, The Third Space.
The chamber, a small glass fronted room over looking the rest of the gym, has a special unit in it that depletes the oxygen levels to mimic training at 8,500ft (2,600m) and is the place where the Comic Relief lot did a bunch of their training before attempting to climb Kilimanjaro last year.
While a severe case of hypoxia will clearly kill you, training at oxygen levels that are similar to that of a high altitude is said to have great benefits as it forces your cardio-respiratory systems to work harder to deliver sufficient oxygen to your working muscles, resulting in a harder workout.
The body is also said to adapt to the reduced oxygen by stimulating the production of a hormone called Erythropoietin (EPO), which in turn leads to an increase in the level of haemoglobin and red blood cells (those that carry the oxygen). All in all, it’s considered to be the equivalent of fine tuning a car.
On a practical level we did a five minute warm up before a half hour running programme on the treadmill and before we’d even started the serious stuff, I was doing some serious sweating. The first thing you notice when you start to run is a slight tightness in the chest as the lungs try to adapt to the new oxygen levels before you begin to feel a little light headed.
The hills programme made things even worse: starting on a level, every couple of minutes or so, your treadmill incline increases – and it was somewhere around here that Ben suddenly decided it was time to take some pictures (which should be on here soon).
Have a look at the link to my run details below and see how my heart rate changed on the hilly parts, at some points I was touching 174 beats per minute. Given I normally run at about 150bpm, you can tell the kind of workout I was getting.
By the end of the run, I certainly knew I’d been in a tougher workout, dripping with sweat and with my head ringing from the blood pumping up to it. You also feel even more light headed when you come out of the chamber and back to normal oxygen levels.
Now if only I could afford The Third Space’s monthly rates…
Click here for full details of the day’s run
Miles today: 3.42
Target: 543
Miles to date: 709.98
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