hubcyclist

Just rode on a hubway bike on the charles river esplanade, 14.5mph, wicked fast

Doge

“One test is worth a thousand expert opinions” – von Braun. I only have data for my son and some that others have told me (and those that wear the SpO2 watch training). I find it very useful, so I use it.

It is a long term indicator of acclimating to altitude. It gives lower values under high stress training and I noticed that the fitter the riders, the less it goes down. I have a good eye for my son’s reading. If he’s 97% something is up. The kid is low single dig body fat and catches colds rather easily (2X a year – but that really screws up training).

My only interest is above 87% and I’m more concerned it is precise than accurate. If I can get repeatable results I can use it. I get repeatable results.

I don’t know what equation works. It is not linier and it also can be changed / improved. At 20.5% (bed) he is 99%, at 30% less O2 – 15% he was 87%. After 4 years he’s 91-92% at 9,500ft. If I change the O2 % the SpO2 is not linier. I’ve tested this in both his Hypoxia tent and above Estes Part, CO.

My son can test 99% resting, in 10 min 95% and 10 more min 92% - in normal air at sea level. Near my AT I am about 88% and was 98% today. Several riders I ride with used the device when they were gassed and values went down. “Fitter” riders were harder to move.
Here is a clip showing the change based on effort and then at age 10 testing session (no SpO2 – just we’ve been testing for a while).


https://vimeo.com/129016136The OyxCheq measures O2%. This is roughly 9,200ft


Over time SpO2 went up at the same O2%

TheKillerPenguin

I'm jealous that you've been so supportive of your son, when I was that age I begged my parents for a road bike and they thought it was a phase and wouldn't get me one. I didn't get one until I was able to afford one in college.

That said, and don't take this the wrong way - is this something he wanted to do, or have you steered him in this direction?

Doge

A picture of a device that can be used during athletics is at the bottom of that long response post.

Part II - I have not tried, but wanted to put junior on O2 at AT and see if AT goes up, or SpO2 changes.
I have a helmet based cannula that could go to a bottle under the jersey that would give 30 at full throttle. I think it might be fun to use in a TT - till it gets banned, and I expect it would be thought cheating - although its currently legal.

grolby

Believe it or not, I'm not trying to pick on you or even necessarily say that you shouldn't use it. But I find it a little confounding and it hardly seems worth tracking. If you're trying to track and help your kid achieve the fitness for national or international competition, that's a little different from what I'm doing and maybe it really is correlating to important information about his health and fitness. Or maybe it's still pseudoscience and confirmation bias. As for tracking this sort of data for my own needs, I'm trying to do well in local Cat 3 races and I don't even do regular power tests (though I guess I will after my upcoming rest week, sigh). So obviously I have a different perspective.

Hermes

@mattm Heal up fast.

Heathpack 

Sorry, I have no idea what you guys are doing. But its interesting to me.

It sounds like your son is sleeping in an oxygen tent that produces an O2 environment that is 20.5%? That is confusing to me, because room air is 20% O2. Then at some other time, he is being exposed to a low oxygen (15%) environment? And you measure his SPO2 in the low oxygen environment and it is 87%? Where is the low oxygen environment and what is he doing while he is in low oxygen environment?

When I said "do the math," I was just talking about the fact that I had posted previously that maximal SPO2 is 5x FiO2. That part is linear. So I was too lazy to do the math myself, basically I was just saying that 5x 17% gives you an SPO2 of 85%. I was just making the point that SPO2 is lower in a low oxygen environment. Which it sounds like you know, but many people may not. So at 15% oxygen environment, SPO2 "should" be 75%. 87% would be an excellent value and would indicate a greater than typical oxygen carrying capacity. It sounds to me like you guys are trying to increase oxygen carrying capacity, so I am just curious as to what you are actually doing.

The part of all of this that is not linear is the way in which oxygen interacts with hemoglobin once oxygen saturation drops below 80%. Not really relevant to training in non-sick individuals, that's more of an issue in illness. I only brought it up because you mentioned the 80% figure.

If your son in normal room air is getting oxygen saturation readings that vary from 92-99% at rest, the low values are likely measurement error with the device. This happens all the time, you just have to reposition the sensor to get a correct reading, that's just the nature of the machine. When someone reports an implausibly low SPO2 reading to me, my first response is to reposition the sensor. This is irritating to my staff because they know to do this and have likely already done it 20 times before even bringing the low value up to me. The 99% readings are normal readings for untrained individuals.

It totally makes sense though that anyone near their AT would have a lower oxygen saturation. What do you do with that information, however? Does it change the way you train?

Sorry I watched the video but have no idea what it was trying to demonstrate. There was no audio with it and I could not follow what you were trying to illustrate with the various parameters you show in the video.

So the bottom line is that I'm pretty interested in hearing the logistics of what you are doing and the rationale behind it. Sounds interesting.

Hermes

Boy was I wrong... I thought Doge's son was in the tent to prevent the 50 watt loss due to interaction with women.

Heathpack 

It would be expected that supplemental oxygen would increase SPO2 if it were low.

Even though it is legal, in spirit supplemental O2 during competition would be cheating IMO. But it would be interesting to see if it improved performance. In theory it would, but there are likely other factors causing a decline in performance with intense activity, it may not all be oxygen delivery to the muscles.

Heathpack 

Haha, as a woman I could vouch for the fact that a man in an oxygen tent would indeed have that very effect. But that's another matter entirely.

JohnKScott

Booo...heal quickly.

TheKillerPenguin

1.5hrs easy. Neck almost has full range of motion again, which is nice.

Enthalpic

At sea level O2 is ~20.9% so 20.5% is simulated altitude.

At high altitude the conc is still 20.9%... just the partial pressure of O2 is lower (see Dalton's law).

JohnKScott

Good to hear.

caloso

I can only imagine my wife's reaction if I put my 11-year old junior in an oxygen tent.

Doge

20.5% is our house. 14.5% was in the hypoxia tent / hood.

Yes we are trying to increase available oxygen. Over the years, SpO2 has gone up for him at the same O2%.

In the video you see the oximeter used twice @ :08 he is 96 @ 151BPM (his max is 207) and at :10 he is 91 at 188BPM. His AT is around 194. The later soundless stuff was testing him at age late 10 – it is off topic for SpO2.

Why:
I used SpO2 at first to adjust the altitude settings. I didn't want him losing sleep or focus from being too low O2%. This tent is a hood. If the body is to adapt is can only do so at a certain rate.
We do blood work on him. So I saw the Hematocrit go up and the SpO2 go up/improve. He is where we need him.
National RR finishes in Truckee Jun 24 (7,000'+).
For example team and a bunch of kids are going up to Mammoth in June, some are there now. I have read that muscle mass is lost at altitude. For him, no gym, he will lose a bit of strength. Besides school isn't out, I know he does not need to go so early. I also know he can do more intense low altitude training. So that means a logistical change.

2nd part I want to do more with and get more feedback from others. Also for those that have read this far, I think it applies to armatures/masters without tents and costs < $100.
At Valley of the Sun TT he averaged about 195HR. At SoCal TT last week getting over a cold he averaged 8 beats less. I did not, but I wish he had a PO on him then (not really, it was a race). I’m betting his recovering 188HR and his healthy 195HR had about the same SpO2. I think if you train intervals to SpO2 of say – 90 or 88 that may be better than HR. You are trying to get your body adapted to a lower O2/higher lactic acid state.

Doge

We live on a hill.

MDcatV

put him/her in a closet first for a proxy to see how it goes. please share results here.

globecanvas

Just so we're using the right names for things, Doge is talking about a hypoxia tent or altitude tent, which creates an oxygen-starved environment, not an oxygen tent, which creates an oxygen-rich environment.

gsteinb

I was confused and sad that Doge's kid was sick and needed oxygen.

caloso

Right. Of course, if I put him in any kind of tent, it'd probably reach dangerously high levels of methane, especially after feeding him broccoli.

Doge

There were lots of questions by different people about different things. A few days ago I posted what people did with SpO2. I left it open. Because although I have used it for a while, I think there is a lot more there. It got complicated due to the response and number of questions.

For training SpO2 may be a better indicator of how hard to push than AT. Are you really building up too much lactate at a HR or at a level where your blood is carrying less O2? Your HR is how fast the pump is moving and it is relative to you, as is your AT that changes a bit - as does your power. All vary. SpO2 measured correctly (assuming your figure is not cold, too thick skinned, to cut off from blood flow) will tell you something about how much O2 is getting to your legs and is more universal. If saying I was 88%SpO2 meant the same as saying I was at AT, it might always be 88% is your AT for that day, vs. One day your AT is 183 and another it is 179 - as it varies. These devices are somewhat newer than HRMs and as such maybe there is something there.

So specifically someone/s do this and report back.
-Buy a < $100 Pulse Oximeter you can use on your trainer, or road. They cost from $20 to $2000. I think that wrist watch one we bought was $79.
-Measure your resting HR, SpO2, tell us your AT and max HR
-Measure your HR at 95, 90, 88, 85 (if you can) SpO2 - or whatever you can up to AT.

Then do that again a couple weeks apart.

Wylde06

I like to ride my bike.

mattm

Ha I like that.. maybe next year!!

Heathpack 

Well that actually is pretty interesting and in theory makes sense. You are trying to turn him into a greyhound. They have a higher hematocrit than an average dog. Also bigger heart. Higher blood pressure. The interesting thing is that if you make the hematocrit a little bit higher than that of a normal greyhound, the blood becomes more viscous and tissues are not perfused well. Greyhounds also have this mysterious condition where about a quarter of them have extensive bruising after surgery and some of them just start bleeding from their surgical site and it won't stop. All their typical clotting parameters are normal, but it has been shown that they don't form clots which are as strong as normal dogs. Probably this is due to Greyhounds having better ability to break down clots vs average dogs- ie they have more active fibrinolytic systems. You can prevent this post-op complication in Greyhounds by giving them a medication called aminocaproic acid, which is thought to block the body's ability to break down clots. I've wondered if maybe this enhanced fibrinolysis in Greyhounds is actually a positive adaptation to increased blood viscosity, a way for them to keep their blood flowing normally to the tissues. Who knows?

Anyway, none of that is immediately relevant. How much have you been able to increase his hematocrit? As I'm sure you know, hematocrit is the % of the blood that is red blood cells. RBCs are where the hemoglobin is and hemogloblin is what carries oxygen. There is more too it than that, of course. You have to successfully move the blood around. You also want a big heart and a big blood volume. But having more RBCs within a normal physiologic range is better for sure.

I still think it makes no sense to measure SPO2 in room air at rest. It tells you nothing. But I could see using SPO2 during max efforts as a training end point, that actually does make sense. Or measuring it in some other hypoxic condition like altitude, but then you could just measure hematocrit instead, it would tell you the same thing. I guess from your perspective the SPO2 is easier because you don't need a blood sample.

The pulse oximeter probes can be used on any non-pigmented tissue FYI. It doesn't have to be the finger. During a race, for example, the probe could be on the ear with the wire running down the back into a jersey pocket to the unit itself. The problem would be keeping it in place, you can't clamp the probes too tightly onto the tissue in question because it will interfere with blood flow and give you bad readings. Some kind of cycling-specific earpiece would need to be designed but in theory it could be done.