Numerous studies have shown the benefits of high altitude training for endurance athletes. With those benefits come some risks that must be assessed in order to maintain control of the athlete’s health and wellness, as well as his or her performance. One such risk left mostly unexplored is the impact traveling to high altitudes has on an athlete’s sleep.
This experiment maps out the sleep architecture of ten male adolescents traveling from Sydney, Australia to an 18-day training camp in Bolivia. Data was collected four times, once in Santa Cruz (430m) and three times over two weeks in La Paz (3600m). A complete sleep architecture maps out any change in a person’s sleep pattern over the course of the night, including the amount of time spent in REM and the three phases of NREM. REM and deep NREM are the most important phases sleep, allowing for mental recovery, consolidation, learning, physical recovery, and growth. The amount of time each of the participants spent in REM sleep initially lowered upon traveling to altitude, but began to regulate as the two weeks progressed. However, breathing disturbances increased and did not improve for half of the athletes. The researchers could not conclude from this experiment the impact, if any, disordered breathing has on the quality of sleep. As this is the first study of its kind, more studies need to be conducted to measure the overall impact breathing disturbances and arousals have on the efficacy of altitude training for adolescents.
EnviPhys 