By now you might not be having any doubt when running around, lifting weights or when even riding around at a moderate elevation with the high altitude training mask. The basic idea for using this instrument is to stimulate the hypoxic condition of exercising at a specific altitude let us say 5,000 feet above the sea level or even higher!
Having some products, there is also a single component of resisted breathing- which means you have to physically work harder to inhale or exhale. Many cyclists and runners want to know are a training mask will make them a little faster, so let us take a look at the science of the product.
How does an altitude mask work?
A number of masks are available in the market that simply restricts your breathing; this is so you cannot inhale air into your lungs as fast as normal. Also, when you exercise with the one you generally get out of breath a little sooner. So, when exercising at a lower intensity level, than you normally would, you will also accumulate more amount of CO2 in your body. But the composition of the air you tend to breath is the exact same as without the mask. You are only getting less amount of oxygen because you are inhaling less amount of air.
Exposure to an altitude is very different. When training at a higher altitude, the percentage of the oxygen present in the air is the same as it is at the sea level. But, the air pressure is lower when we talk about high altitude, as the oxygen molecules are further apart. Therefore, you will find a fewer of them in a normal lungful of air. When you are breathing in the same volume of the air there is just a fewer molecule of the oxygen present in it.
At several training centers, they remove the entire amount of oxygen from the air you are breathing. This is done so that when you inhale a full breath there is supply less amount of the oxygen available in that volume of air. The point is that an altitude training mask is not simulating the same type of hypoxia experience of the athlete, especially the ones who are either living or training at higher elevations, and that is considered to be an important difference.
