“Drug squad police officers searched the hotel of a team competing in the Giro d’Italia on Wednesday looking for a hyperbaric tent. These tents, which can aid the formation of red blood cells in the body, are not illegal under World Anti-Doping Agency rules, but they could contravene Italian laws.”
… get ride of those tents you cheaters!!! The next rule will be that you are not to train/live 6,000 feet above sea level. Someone call the Congress hyperbaric tent oversight committee on this one!
I think HYPERbaric is correct with an increase in O2 (100% O2 environment). This is not so much a training therapy as it is a recovery and repair therapy.
Read on if you wish or search “hyperbaric chambers”:
Effects of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
Mechanical effect of increated preasure
Any free gas trapped in the body will decrease in volume as pressure exerted on it increases (Boyle’s Law). Reduction in bubble size may allow it to pass through the circulation, or at least travel into a smaller vessel which will reduce the size of any resulting infarction. This effect is useful in the management of gas embolism and decompression sickness.
Mass Action of gases
Flooding the body with oxygen forces the rapid elimination of other gases, thus reducing damage caused by toxic gases such as carbon monoxide. The elevated pressures used during hyperbaric oxygen therapy further accelerates the elimination process.
Vasoconstriction
Hyperbaric oxygen acts as an alpha-adrenergic drug. Vasoconstriction can result in reduction of edema following burns or crush injuries. Even with a reduction in blood flow, enough extra oxygen is carried by the blood so a net increase in tissue oxygen delivery occurs with hyperbaric oxygen.
Anti-bacterial effect
Anaerobic bacteria don’t contain the natural defenses to protect them from the superoxides, peroxides and other compounds formed in the presence of high oxygen tensions. More important, many of the body’s bacterial defense mechanisms are oxygen dependent. When tissue pO2 drops too low, effective ingestion and killing by phagocytic leukocytes is retarded. Reoxygenation of those tissues allows phagocytosis and other host defense mechanisms to come back into play.
Anti-ischemic effect
Hyperbaric oxygen physically dissolves extra oxygen into the plasma (Henry’s Law). The quantity of oxygen carried and transferred to ischemic tissue by the blood is increased. Relieving the ischemia with this increased oxygenation promotes osteoclastic and osteoblastic activity, collagen matrix formation and the breakdown of many toxins. The extra oxygen also helps the ischemic tissue meet the increased metabolic need required by healing processes.
I know of several NHL hockey teams that have used these HYPERbaric chambers as well as a few Canadian track olympians who used them for recovery and injury therapy. One Olympic marathoner was adamant that it helped her get over an achilles injury. I can see how spending 30 min in one of these after a stage would really help for the next day
I think we’re all talking about two different things here. There are “Altitude tents,” used famously by LA to simulate life at altitude to promote more red blood cell development (all the benefits of EPO without the EPO), and then there are the “Hyperbaric Chambers” or whatever that saturate the blood with oxygen to promote recovery. Am I wrong on this? I apologize if so.
Actually, it would make more sense that someone would be using a Hyperbaric Chamber of some sorts during the Giro to promote recovery, and that this might be problematic, no? I guess you continue the use of an Altitude Tent during the race, but I wonder about the benefits at this point in the game. Interesting.
"Altitude tents don’t give you all the benefits of EPO. They may give you many of the benefits of living at altitude though. "
altitude tents expose you to a hypobaric environment (same as at altitude), your body will produce more EPO which will stimulate the production of RBC. How can altitude tents not give you all the benefits of EPO but “may give you many of the benefits of living at altitude”?
Your body regulates how much EPO is produced, even in a low 02 environment. With artificial EPO you can achieve much higher levels, enough to cause serious health problems.
It’s kind of funny. Reuters and the AP are both saying HYPERbaric. RTE and some other euro agency are saying HYPObaric. Both with correct descriptions of the effects.
Hypobaric = reduced pressure (low pressure chamber, for hypoxia training)
Hyperbaric = increased pressure (dive chamber used for treatment of decompression sickness and hyperbaric oxygen treatment for some medical conditions)
In both cases pressure is manipulated. Oxygen levels may be manipulated as well. Especially in the hyperbaric chamber. I have run and ridden in both several times.
You can produce hypoxia by reducing oxygen % rather than pressure. It is called normobaric hypoxia. it is what the altitude tents use. Physiologically it is equivalent to hypobaric hypoxia. With hyperbaric treatment you can provide greater partial pressures of oxygen than you can with 100% oxygen at sea level. This is commonly done during the treatment of decompression sickness (100% oxygen during a treatment table 6 at 60 feet of sea water, something like that).
Both types of chambers come in portable forms. There are inflatable hyperbaric chambers and of course altitude tents that can be packed into suitcase sized containers.
