![]() Regardless of the degree of research prior to Mexico City being awarded the games, athletes and scientists knew participating in an elite athletic competition at high elevation was going to have some effect on performance. He expressed the need for athletes to extensively acclimate at altitude prior to competing, but he did not understand the matter enough to offer guidance as to how long they needed to do so. He claimed in Johnson’s Science and Medicine of Exercise and Sport, which was published that year, the “oxygen supply to the body becomes inadequate as a result of lower pressure of oxygen and the diminished oxygen content of the arterial blood.” Altitude was not allowing enough oxygen to be absorbed by the body, and thus led to low-to-moderate muscular recovery and effort after training sessions.īy 1960, researcher Bruno Balke had done extensive research with non-elite athletes at high altitude. Hill created the term ‘oxygen debt,’ which described how, when individuals exercised or participated in athletics with an inadequate supply of oxygen, lactic acid was produced in muscles during exercise functions and converted back to glycogen in muscles during their recovery period. ![]() In 1925, Nobel Prize winning physiologist A.V. ![]() “What Mexico City did in an offhand way was point out that if you can prepare the body in the right way, you can exceed expectations in athletics,” Wendel wrote.Īlthough altitude training wasn’t a new concept in the early 1960s, it took the rise of sport science and the elevation in Mexico City to fully understand its effect. “After 1968, training at altitude, even if the events were going to be held at sea level, was seen to be a great way to prepare,” wrote Tim Wendel, in his book “Summer of ’68: The Season That Changed Baseball - and America - Forever.” Distance runners and swimmers believed they would be at a disadvantage because they wouldn’t be able to take in as much air as they had during their training sessions. ![]() Competitors in the long jump, shot put and high jump believed the city’s location approximately 7,350 feet above sea level would benefit them because of the thinner air. ![]()
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