Please, do me a favor and read the info in the red box. Hypoxia ≠ Kaatsu |
Against that background I can live with the minor downside that the subjects were 13 healthy men (mean age, 23 years; height 169 cm; body mass 60 kg) who were assigned to train either under normoxic or hypoxic training conditions were a little "too average" (=untrained) for my liking.
You can learn more about Hypoxia at the SuppVersity
Just to make sure you don't over-read this: Hypoxia in this case means "low oxygen supply" - This is in contrast to blood flow restriction training of which I suspect that some of you may have (until now) thought was applied in this study.
As the data in Figure 1 goes to show you, neither (a) nor (b) nor both was the case in the study at hand. The Elbow extensions the subjects performed at a workload of a 10 RM with the non dominant arm to exhaustion three times with 1-minute intervals 3 days each week for 8 weeks, did after all elicit significant strength and size gains in both groups - regardless of whether they were performed while the subjects were inspiring normoxic air (FiO2=20. 9%; at sea level) or hypoxic gas (FiO2=12 .7%; corresponding to 4000 m above sea level):Figure 1: Thickness of triceps brachii (a and b) in both arms before and after training in the normoxic (N) and hypoxic (H) groups; ** denotes significant difference (Kurobe. 2014) |
The inter-group differences, i.e. the significantly greater increase in muscle thickness the hypoxia group, was significant, as well. And while the latter cannot be said of the increase in strength, I am pretty sure that the additional size gains alone would be reason enough for some of you to take a bottle with reduced oxygen air (Fi=2=12.7%; meaning only 12.7% of the air in the container would be oxygen to the gym).
In view of the non-existent effects on strength, it's also not exactly an option for regular performance oriented athletes.
For a bodybuilder, on the other hand, it may in fact be worth trying. After years of training, it's yet not realistic to see similar pronounced gains as a rookie, though - so don't be disappointed if the cycle you did last summer had more pronounced effects boys ;-)
- Kurobe et al. "Effects of resistance training under hypoxic conditions on muscle hypertrophy and strength." Clin Physiol Funct Imaging(2014) doi: 10.1111/cpf.12147