What value Colorado?

Football Discussion Dustin Fletcher Hangar
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I was at the True Value Solar Centre a couple of weeks ago and was lucky enough to get a (full) tour. There is indeed an altitude simulation room (if that's the name...) inside the hangar. The artificial ground is in the hangar, which is adjacent to a basketball court, which is adjacent to the gym and an empty rood which will become the altitude room. It will cost a hundred G's from memory and does not replace the Colorado trip. Instead they bugger off to Colorado, get fit, and then can use the room to sustain those benefits. I'm not sure they can continue the extra bonus infinitely (you'd imagine not) or just keep that boost going for a lot longer (probably the case) but that's what it's for. I'd say the Colorado trip is here to stay.

 

I was actually involved in the design of the altitude rooms at Vic Uni Footscray, which are frequently used by the Doggies for altitude training (plus other athletes, testing, etc.).

 

The setup there is a combination of 3 facilities:

  1. Altitude hotel, where people are able to live for days at a time at simulated altitude. Could house 16 people all up (would be very cramped though)
  2. Environmental Exercise Lab, set up for 10 people to train in a single room under a range of conditions (high heat, humidity, altitude, cold, low humidity, or any combination). Up to 45 deg heat, down to 5 deg, 10%-95% humidity.
  3. Heat chamber, purely for heat training, but would only fit 2 or 3 people in it

Max altitude is 3500m (although they have struggled to get it running properly for an extended period at that altitude)

 

http://www.vu.edu.au/institute-of-sport-exercise-and-active-living-iseal/research-facilities/altitude-hotel

 

The big difference between colorado and local training is that you can have an entire list acclimatising to altitude, whilst exercising/training. The facilities aren't cheap and they need to be built air-tight, so they will be small and there won't be a lot of space to move around. Expecting 40 odd players to spend a month in cramped conditions isn't realistic! So I think that what you are suggesting (top-up altitude training for maintenance) is probably realistic, but the number of players that will be able to benefit is not going to be a lot. The players would need to be sleeping in the altitude room/s at nights to get maximum benefit, sleepover nights might not be so great...

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Is it cheaper on Wotif.com?

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The idea is just more port science wan k. There are short term gains but there is no proof on long term gains. Save your money Essendon and clone 22 Jobes.

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Whingefest 2014.

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The purpose of the trip to Colorado was

 

1) Improve fitness by allowing us to train more effectively on our return as a result of improved aerobic capacity gained at high altitude.

 

2) Team bonding.

 

Is there any evidence one way or the other about the value of the experience after watching our performance in the pre season matches and the first six rounds?

Hard to tell one way or the other really, as fitness is only one aspect of football.

 

IMO if we didn't have to work 20-30% harder due to a lack of effiecency with the gameplan, we could look like the fittest side in the comp, and maybe have won all bar the freo game.

 

Even the hawks game in the first half, we were having to work damn hard to try and score, but on a number of occassions we had more players running back into defense when the hawks got a quick break. There sublime skills killed us however.

 

So personally I think the fitness side is ok. just other aspects need to be better tuned to make it more noticeable

66

Personally, i think there are better 4wd's on the market.

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Personally, i think there are better 4wd's on the market.

Rofl. Just opened this thread to say about 35k with aircon.