The cost is $6995.00
You can obtain the gas at your local welding shop. Medical, aviation and industrial grade oxygen all comes from the same place.
Please email me if you want more information rick@vacumed.com

Interesting...I did not know that! If I had (back in 1985), my dissertation research might have gone in a different direction (cost of medical-grade O2 was the deal-breaker).

In the US, there are no different grades of oxygen being produced or contained in cylinders maintained under DOT regulations. By the very nature of the state-of-the-art process in which oxygen is produced, it will be better than 99.99% pure. In addition, oxygen for medical use does not have any more moisture than oxygen for any other purposes, nor is it added. Furthermore, because of the chemical nature of oxygen it must be as pure and dry as possible if stored under pressure. Therefore, a hygiene protocol is necessary in order to prevent oxygen from being contaminated or to help keep contaminated oxygen from being used. This, perhaps, is why many believe there are different grades. A medical prescription is not needed for oxygen if it is for 'AVO', (but is for medical purposes) The FDA or FAA does not regulate oxygen for �AVO /ABO� purposes.

There are four kinds of oxygen that are merchandised or sold to users; Aviation, Medical, Welding and Research. There is an ongoing controversy if there is any difference between the different types. Oxygen gas is produced from the boiling off of liquid oxygen. It would appear that the oxygen is therefore the same. Where we obtain oxygen, all the different types of oxygen are supplied from the same manifold system. Then someone says that medical oxygen has more moisture in it. That is partly true. The oxygen going to a hospital bed is plain oxygen that comes from liquid oxygen. At the bed location, there is a unit on the wall that adds moisture. At this moment we now have medical oxygen. If the oxygen is in a pressure vessel or in a manifold system (like inside a hospital) then it is regular oxygen. The cost of medical or welding oxygen is normally much less than the oxygen you get at an airport.

Also of interest, we have been told by the suppliers of welding oxygen, the purity level required for welding and cutting purposes is more critical than for breathing.

The bottom line about the different types of oxygen is in the insurance liability of the oxygen supplier. The gas is the same but the insurance liability is different.

Again, very interesting - thanks for the detailed explanation.

Thank you as well for the information re: different sources of oxygen.

Makes me a feel a bit better about some of the O2 kit that I have in my work kit that came from...uh...local sources.

Forget training..


Has anyone ever used portable oxygen in transition?

There are days when I swear it would come in usefull.

Are there any training facilities that use your setup where I could try a session or two?

One thing that you need to be careful of with oxygen systems is that pure oxygen, under pressure, is a powerful oxidizer and things will react very quickly under pure oxygen (i.e. burn) while it's totally safe at room pressures and concentrations. For instance - the gauges for oxygen regulators are specifically made for the purpose, and the reason they say 'use no oil' in any part of the high pressure oxygen system is that the oil will spontaneously combust in the presence of pure oxygen.

http://nuclearpowertraining.tpub.com/.../css/h1015v2_120.htm


A second thing is that a pressurized oxygen tank needs to be treated with a great deal of respect. If the tank were to fall over and then break the regulator off, it would take off like a rocket and go through whatever is in its way (including cinderblock walls) until its energy was expended.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-xmaPSZ6GM


This is why you generally see gas bottles chained to a wall, and it's proper safety practice to screw on the heavy steel protective cap anytime the bottle is going to be moved.

Edit: The picture in the original post doesn't have the cylinder chained up... bad practice.

Mythbusters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejEJGNLTo84

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Less is more.

Dr Coggan, Any thoughts on what type of intervals might be most effective using the Vacumed system: 2 x 15s (lactate threshold) or 4 x 5s (VO2Max)? Your answer would be based on what you've reviewed in papers on hyperoxic training and what experience you have first hand. I live at altitude and I am wondering if Vacumed's Trainextreme would have real benefits for me. My Sp02 declines to 88 while doing lactate threshold training at altitude(6200).

I know what you were driving at, but this sentence made me giggle regardless.

My gut instinct is that using it for VO2max-type training is likely to provide more bang-for-the-buck...but it's just a gut instinct.

Please email me for a possible demonstration.

Desaturation will occur at altitude and hyperoxia will reverse that. However desaturation at sea level strangely only occurs in the elite athletes and its cause is unknown but relates to the rate of blood flow they produce thus not allowing time for diffusion across the lung. The increase in power output and performance with hyperoxia is a very complex issue and not completely understood. But it does happen with subjects who do not show desaturation during work. Actually most of the hyperoxic performance data is with subjects who do not desaturate. Factors that result in the increased performance (power output) on hyperoxia included among others : a greater gradient driving force for O2 across both lung and muscle membranes, increased buffer capability, reduced ventilation therefore cost of breathing, increased CO2 in blood, metabolic shifts to fat metabolism on hyperoxia , plus unknown factors. The hyperoxic increase in power is not driven by reversing desaturation since in most cases the subjects do not desaturate during the work.

I used to live in Colorado Springs and had trouble with the altitude and thought about this solution. I saw some pics of one of the locals, perhaps Sarah Haskins, training this way and there was a giant parachute looking bladder that she was breathing from along with the mask, hoses, giant tank, etc. I decided it was too hard to even try to do after I saw that.

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I've used a prototype system of the Vacumed Trainxtreme hyperoxic system. It seemed to significantly improve my wattage power and leg strength at VOMax and above. I was able to do my trainer intervals easily at 15% higher wattage with the system than without. However I was never able to quantify my improvements as I used it only 8 times during racing season and ended up getting sick. Thanks Dr. Coggan for your input. I hope to use hyperoxic training again and I think it may be an answer for those that live at altitude.

Digging up an old-ish thread, but is there any reason why you couldn't use a cpap type oxygen concentrator with a mask? I know they come in 5l/min and up to 10l/min... Would 5l/in provide enough air if using a mask with a 2-way NRBV?

Main thing I would worry about is rebreathing CO2 is the reservoir wasn't big enough.

Yeah... hence the non re-breathing valve on the mask.

True but when I look at almost all of the professional setups they also include very large reservoirs: either boxes or very large bags. It doesn't seem like the set-up should be that complicated though. I really just want a list of parts.

I've designed and built several of these devices over the past 20 yrs to support my research in hypo and hyperoxia and, you are right, spending $7 k on this device is a bit like buying a solid gold paperclip to hold your papers together when all you really need is a staple. You can build your own setup for just a few hundred dollars. This is what you will need:

one hans-rudolph model 2700 breathing valve (this will be your mixer for the gas)
one breathing mask or a second breathing valve and nose clip
- this doesn't need to be an hr 2700 model (which is pretty expensive)
Two 1 1/4 inch breathing hoses with cuffs. One hose can be as short as 12 inches or so, the other should be at least 3 feet
One meteorological balloon (60-90 liter capacity should do)
3 feet of pvc pipe (your breathing hoses will attach to the pipe, so the outer diameter of the pipe should be slightly larger than the inner diameter of the cuffs on the breathing hoses)
A T-joint and an L-joint to connect the sections of PVC pipe to the breathing hose and meteorological balloon
about 2-3 feet of 1/4" inner diameter tigon hose
One pressure regulator ( I believe this is a cga 540 but I don't have one in front of me, so check with your gas supplier)
A role of duct tape

You can dress-up the setup with a demand-flow regulator if you want (the kind of regulator that you find on scuba tanks). The dfr eliminates the need for the meteorological balloon and makes it easier to operate during your workouts, but it is expensive, and the basic setup is pretty simple to operate anyway.

With this you can build a setup that is similar to the picture on page 143 of my book "Performance Cycling". It is a bit tough to see in that picture, so contact me and I can walk you through how to build it. My contact info is on my website at racersready.com.

Once you have all of the material, you can build the setup in about 30 minutes and it is as easy to put together as a set of tinker-toys. The real hassle with any of these units is the gas cylinder. They are very heavy and awkward to move. You can't just toss them in the trunk of your car and your gas supplier will likely have to deliver it to you. As one of the earlier posters noted, you shouldn't leave the cylinders unsecured as is shown in the picture. Their dimensions make them inherently unstable and if they fall and damage the valve or regulator you have a missile on your hands. You can chain them to the wall or, I recommend buying a special dolly that will secure the cylinder and let you wheel it up to your bike or treadmill. You can buy the dolly at your gas supplier. Having these cylinders may also violate fire codes in some areas, so you may want to check with the local fire marshal before you invest in a setup.

Finally, be aware that the increased training intensity can require increased recovery time between workouts. Runners seem to have more trouble recovering from hyperoxic workouts than do cyclists. As Andy suggested in an earlier post, we have had our best results using hyperoxia during "VO2 max" types of efforts, i.e. 1-5 minute, very high intensity intervals. Also, the gas is going to be drier than you normally find in the atmosphere which can cause dryness of the mouth and throat, but gargling with glycerol before the workout seems to help a bit.

Hope this helps

Decades ago, Ed Howley described bubbling hyperoxic gas through warmed water to humidify it before inspiration. Based on that, for some pilot studies I built a system consisting of a gallon glass bottle sitting on a warming plate (yogurt maker), with one small tube leading into 1 L of distilled water and a second venting the bottle. Not sure it's the safest/most sanitary approach, though! (Think Legionnaire's Disease.)

Like I have always said, its amazing what you can do with a yogurt maker and a little ingenuity. We considered a similar approach early on when we were using premixed air straight from the cylinders, but when we started mixing gas from the cylinders with atmospheric air it seemed to reduce considerably the humidity problem.