Effect of 12 Weeks of Endurance Training at Moderate and Low Altitude on Selected Hematological Variables

Nowadays, exercising at altitude has become a modern trend. The principal challenge that occurs by doing exercise at high altitude is a deficiency in the amount of oxygen reaching to the tissues. As the altitude increases, the barometric pressure decreases resulting in a drop in oxygen level pressure (West, JB 1996) which causes hypobaric hypoxia with the drop in barometric pressure, the body natural protective system starts automatically also known as acclimatization. Acclimatization is a situation in which a body changes itself physiologically to compensate less oxygen generally occurring at high altitude. A person arriving at this altitude experiences sympathetic activity followed by increases heart rates. The maximum rate decreases with the increase in altitude. Increase vagal tone and the down-regulation of beta- 12 receptors is the mechanism behind this activity. The stroke volume decreases, (Bartsch, P & Gibbs, JSR 2007) leading to lower cardiac output. The systemic vascular pressure brings up the arterial pressure. The other reasons for arterial pressure are enhanced catecholamine secretion and blood vicinity. There are many major changes in blood during early weeks is an increase in red blood cell mass. Its importance is associated with the high hemoglobin concentration, finally improving the performance level of an athlete.

Participants: Total twenty-four district level long and middle distance male runners, age ranging between fourteen to seventeen years were selected from two sports hostel of Uttarakhand, India through purposive sampling. Twelve runners from sports hostel Pithoragarh which is situated at a Moderate altitude around 1550 meters above from sea level and twelve runners from Maharana Pratap sports hostel Dehradun which is situated at low altitude around 600 meters above from sea level were selected.

hematological variables- 1. Hemoglobin

2. RBC

The training program at moderate altitude was supervised by the investigator after the first month of training of the low altitude. The assister often contributes to the training program along with the investigator. Prior to the beginning of training, programme assistants were made well acquainted with the purpose of the study, intensity and load magnitude assessment, pace and recovery according to time schedule made by the investigator.

The influence of independent variables on each criterion variables are analyzed and presented below

In the table 1 analysis of co-variance (ANCOVA) for the means of Moderate and low altitude groups in hemoglobin were calculated and found significant at '0.05' level of significance. The pre-test, post-test and adjusted post-test mean values of both the training groups on Hemoglobin levels are graphically presented in the figure I.

In the table 2, analysis of co-variance (ANCOVA) for the means of Moderate and low altitude groups in RBC were calculated and found significant at 0.05 level of significance. The pre-test, post-test and

groups on RBC levels are graphically presented in the figure II.

The result of the study showed that significant improvement in hemoglobin level in the moderate altitude training group as compared to the low altitude training group in terms of the mean values. The increase levels of hemoglobin as a result of training may be attributed to the reason that due to acclimatization the plasma level in blood increases. It access to the elevated levels of dehydration which takes place due to increase respiratory rate. As the respiratory rate increases the water through sweat gets out of the body. One reason may be that due to excessive stress on respiratory system, which takes place due to a decrease in partial pressure of oxygen, the hemoglobin level increases to compensate the lack of oxygen in the body. Due to increasing hemoglobin the O2 binding in blood increases. This compensates the lack of oxygen in body (Faulkner A. 1967). Another result also showed that there is significant improvement in the red blood cells of moderate altitude training group when compared to low altitude training group, in terms of the values. These findings may be attributed to the reason that the partial pressure of the oxygen decreases and as a result of several effects the metabolism in bone marrow increases. As a consequence, the enzymatic activity in bone marrow increase and the RBC production also increases. (Ramirez 1991) has also shown similar effects of moderate altitude training in his study. The RBC increase is also associated with an increase in the hemoglobin levels and RBC plays an important role in enhancing the endurance capacity. The endurance training also causes an increase in erythropoietin (EPO) levels which is secreted by the kidney. The increase in EPO causes the bone marrow to elevate the levels of RBC production. (Hoppler Hans, 2001) Berglund. (1992). High-Altitude Training: Aspects of Hematological Adaptation . Sports Medicine, 14(5), pp. 289-303. Faulkner, J. A., Daniels, J. T., & Balke, B. (1967). Effects of training at moderate altitude on physical performance capacity. Journal of Applied Physiology, 23(1), pp. 85-89. Fox, S.I. (2006). Human Physiology. Mac Graw Hill: New York. Hahn, A. G., & Gore, C. J. (2001). An evaluation of the concept of living at moderate altitude and training at sea level. Comparative Biochemistery and Physiology-Part A Molecular & Integrative Physiology, 128(4), pp. 777- 89. DOI:10.1016/S1095- 6433(01)00283-5 Heikki Rusko,Tikkanen & Juha Peltonen (2011). Altitude and endurance training, Journal of sports science, pp. 928-945. Hoppeler, H., & Vogt, M. (2001). Hypoxia training for sea-level performance. Jadhav, S. K., Pagare, S. B., & Singh, S. K. (2007). Research Process in physical Education & Sport: an Introduction. New Delhi : Khel Sahitya Kendra. James, Robert F. Chapman, Benjamin D. Levine. (2001). ―Living-high, training low‖ altitude training improves sea level performance in male and female elite runners. Journal of Applied Physiology, 91(3), pp. 1113-1120. Ramirez, G., Bittle, P., Colice, G., Foulis, P., & Agosti, S. (1991). Biochemical adaptations to moderately high altitude living. Journal of Wilderness Medicine, 2(4), pp. 287-297. Saunders, P. U. (2010). Effectiveness of intermittent training in hypoxia combined with live hgh/train low. European journal of applied physiology, 110(2), pp. 379-387. Smoliga, J (Summer 2009). "High-altitude training for distance runners". Track Coach. pp. 188. Thomas, J. R., Nelson, J. k., & Silverman, S. J. (2010). Research Methods in Physical Activity. U.S.A: human kinetics. Verma, J. (2013). Statistics for Psychology. New Delhi: RVS.

Research Scholar, Department of Physical Education and Sports, Pondicherry University, Kalapet