Oxygen Therapy for Athletic Performance

You often see NFL players on the sidelines breathing oxygen, and you may wonder whether breathing that high concentration of oxygen through a special mask is actually helping them to recover faster, or perhaps it is just a placebo. Dr. Johnathan Edwards who is a physiologist, anesthesiologist, and sports medicine physician says that supplemental oxygen can help athletes with: wound healing, tissue repair, inflammation, and mental acuity. However, there are some very important things to consider when administering oxygen, since it is possible to give too much oxygen (referred to as "hyperoxia") as well as too little oxygen (referred to as "hypoxia"). 

Oxygen is contained in the blood in two forms: dissolved in plasma (which is about 2% oxygen) and bound to hemoglobin in red blood cells (which is about 98% oxygen). Breathing supplemental oxygen saturates the hemoglobin and increases the concentration of dissolved oxygen in plasma. It is theoretically possible to get too much oxygen, but rest assured that it is nearly impossible to do so while on land. Problems from oxygen toxicity occur most often in hospitalized patients with lung disease and in scuba diving. But these are not the type of scenarios you would experience when using a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

Exposure to hypoxia (e.g. altitude training) does several things in the body. For example, a protein called Hypoxia Inducible Factor 1 (HIF-1) is increased with exposure to altitude training. HIF-1 actually tells the kidneys and liver to make erythropoietin (EPO), which in turn tells the bone marrow to produce more red blood cells. There are also several genetic adaptations that take place, including higher mRNA levels to hemoglobin. Furthermore, many enzymes involved in mitochondrial energy processes are both up and down regulated.

The United States Olympic Training Center and many other training facilities use altitude training to significantly increase the speed of gains in athletic performance. Dr. Edwards advises athletes to set their altitude training devices at between 12% and 18% oxygen, which corresponds to about 8,000 to 12,000 feet. In addition, altitude training should be done in blocks of 2-8 weeks at a time. When using altitude training to increase performance, it is very important to monitor your fatigue and other variables such as adrenal stress index and heart rate variability.