News

Lewis Smith has just returned from a month´s training with members of the Scottish Senior Squad at Sierra Nevada, near Granada in the south of Spain.  Sierra Nevada is at 2400m altitude in the Spanish mountains and hosts a sports training complex especially designed for international athletes to conduct training at high altitude.  Readers will be aware that there is less oxygen in the air the higher altitude you go.  The theory for training at high altitude therefore is that the body will adapt to the reduced oxygen content in the air by producing more red blood cells to transport oxygen around the body.  This generally takes 3-4 weeks and is most effective when combined with the correct training loads.  When the athlete then returns to sea level, he/she should feel the benefits of the additional red blood cells during training and competition.