Altitude Training | Hypoxic Training

AB Managing Editor: By Michael Popke —

A second man has died following an underwater training accident at a public pool on Staten Island. The New York Daily News reports that 21-year-old off-duty lifeguard Jonathan Proce died Sunday at New York Presbyterian Hospital following an exercise at Lyons Pool last Wednesday in which he and his friend, Bohdan Vitenko, also 21, were practicing underwater breath-holding.

The two were found unconscious and in cardiac arrest in three feet of water at the bottom of the pool; Vitenko died later that day. Two lifeguards have been pulled from their duties after failing to notice Proce and Vitenko, according to The New York Post. Approximately 20 other swimmers were in the pool at the at the time, the paper reports.

Proce was bound for the U.S. Air Force, while Vitenko had dreams of becoming a Navy SEAL. They were regulars at the pool, reportedly participating in a grueling workout routine that included swimming and underwater sit-ups. It is not clear if the men were following an official training program or had developed their own workouts. Either way, the military advises against certain breath-holding exercises or swimming underwater at length to avoid “shallow water blackout,” which can lead to drowning.

According to ShallowWaterBlackoutPrevention.org — an awareness and education site — the condition occurs because of low carbon dioxide and low oxygen (which triggers unconsciousness). Hyperventilation done before breath-holding lowers carbon dioxide abnormally, allowing individuals to hold their breath longer. But the lower carbon dioxide levels rob the body of its built-in mechanism to tell the breath-holder to breathe before going unconscious and taking water into the lungs.

Additionally, “because of the hypoxia, one feels euphoric and empowered to continue breath-holding,” the site states. Unlike regular drowning, where six to eight minutes can elapse before brain damage and death, brain damage and death caused by shallow water blackout can occur within two and a half minutes. More information about shallow water blackout can be found on the Aquatic Safety Research Group’s website.

In 2008, the National Swimming Pool Foundation warned that “anyone who practices competitive, repetitive underwater breath-holding is at risk for shallow water blackout. Once submerged underwater, the swimmer may be hidden from the view of lifeguards by surface glare and ripples/waves on the surface. A series of events is then triggered, including the inhalation of water, possible convulsions and ultimately cardiac arrest and death.”

Dr. Gary Wadler, M.D., the chairman of WADA’s Prohibited List and Methods Subcommittee, says: “There’s tremendous individual variability that makes it hard to predict who will benefit,” .
“In a highly controlled, hospital-level environment, the equipment probably isn’t dangerous,” he says. More worrisome to Wadler are the muscle-heads who will try to cut costs by using homemade setups.
“But if you’re using inferior equipment, there’s a potential to get a severely low intake of oxygen that could result in irreparable damage to the brain.” The lesson here: use the right gear, or risk brain damage or even death.

Here’s a way to get an advantage over the other guys…legally.
Australia Men’s Health Magazine

Luks, Andrew M., Erik R. Swenson.

High Alt. Med. Biol. 12:109–119, 2011.

Pulse oximetry is a valuable, noninvasive, diagnostic tool for the evaluation of ill individuals at high altitude and is also being increasingly used to monitor the well-being of individuals traveling on high altitude expeditions. Although the devices are simple to use, data output may be inaccurate or hard to interpret in certain situations, which could lead to inappropriate clinical decisions. The purpose of this review is to consider such issues in greater detail. After examining the operating principles of pulse oximetry, we describe the available devices and the potential uses of oximetry at high altitude. We then consider the pitfalls of pulse oximetry in this environment and provide recommendations about how to deal with these issues. Device users should recognize that oxygen saturation changes rapidly in response to small changes in oxygen tensions at high altitude and that device accuracy declines with arterial oxygen saturations of less than 80%. The normal oxygen saturation at a given elevation may not be known with certainty and should be viewed as a range of values, rather than a specific number. For these reasons, clinical decisions should not be based on small differences in saturation over time or among individuals. Effort should also be made to minimize factors that cause measurement errors, including cold extremities, excess ambient light, and ill-fitting oximeter probes. Attention to these and other issues will help the users of these devices to apply them in appropriate situations and to minimize erroneous clinical decisions.