Home Altitude Advantage

The Bolivian national soccer team's recent dismantling of Argentina by a score of 6-1 in La Paz (altitude of Estadio Hernando Siles 3637 meters) has prompted many to revisit the idea of how high altitude settings affect athletes visiting from the lowlands. After all how else could a side languishing near the bottom of the South American standings so thoroughly dominate the #6 team in the world?

Above 330 meters (1000 ft), oxygen content in the air starts to become low enough to potentially impair human performance. The unacclimated body responds to this stress in 3 primary ways: 1) increasing respiratory rate to grab as much oxygen from the air as possible 2) increasing hemoglobin levels in order to improve oxygen carrying capacity of the blood 3) increasing heart rate to move those oxygen carriers around to gasping tissues as fast as possible. This process at 2100 meters takes at least 2 weeks to get up to speed. In the meantime a spectrum of misery can occur from headaches, stomach upset, sleeplessness, and of course fatigue to potentially deadly brain swelling and fluid in the lungs at the higher elevations reached by mountain climbers. Unable to devote a fortnight to acclimatization Argentina adopted the common strategy of arriving inLa Paz only a few hours before match time in order to play the game before the unpleasant symptoms of mild altitude sickness kicked in.

It was only a couple of years ago that soccer’s international governing body FIFA outlawed games above 2500 meters saying that such low oxygen conditions were dangerous to athletes only to back track a year later when unable to provide any substantial proof of this claim and not to mention the public outcry led by the influential and certainly unbiased voice of the now head coach of the Argentine national team Diego Maradona. Maradona even played in a 60 minute game in La Paz to prove that if a 47 year old can do it so could fit young pros (his ability to coach at this height is in serious doubt however). The slope could also get quite slippery in a hurry as cases could be made that both heat and air pollution do pose actual health risks to athletes. It wouldn’t be long then until Mexico reasonably claimed that it is not in the spirit of fair play for them to have to face the US in the cold of a February night in Columbus, Ohio. Attempts to standardize playing environments would also remove a great deal of the rich texture that makes soccer so intriguing especially at the international level. Imagine baseball without the ivy covered outfield walls of Wrigley Field or the NFL without Green Bay’s frozen tundra.

So why doesn’t everyone train in the clouds every chance they get? High altitude exposure does result in beneficial adaptations such as increased hemoglobin but the overall performance gains you would expect to reap from this at sea level are negated by the fact that you can’t push your training as hard as you can at lower elevations; muscles can’t push themselves to the edge when they don’t have enough oxygen and aren’t forced to fight as much air resistance. Exposure over generations probably explains overall shorter stature and less muscle mass of natives. Bolivians and Ecuadorans can’t just move to Holland and expect to dominate the Dutch Leagues based on physiology alone. Bolivia has only been able to salvage 1 point in their away matches so far in this qualifying campaign. So living high but driving down the mountain and training low may combine the best of both worlds when attempting to improve performance at low altitudes. It isn’t quite clear if 7-8 hours of sleeping in a low oxygen tent is enough to capture this effect without the commute.

Another interesting question to consider is do countries like Bolivia and Ecuador (Quito's elevation is 2850 meters) maintain their home altitude advantage if their players are plying their trade with clubs near sea level and then return home only a few days before a national team match? It turns out that native highlanders don’t rely on the same adaptations that native lowlanders do to survive at altitude. Rather than transiently increasing hemoglobin, ventilatory rate, and heart rate natives most likely rely on more permanent improvements in how oxygen is transferred from the lungs to working muscles such as increased number of capillaries in the lungs, hemoglobin that grab on to oxygen more tightly, easier dilation of blood vessels, and more efficient mitochondria powering the muscles. These inherent factors allow natives to adjust to higher elevations much more quickly than non-natives. The blueprint may have been shaped over generations and hardwired in to the genetic code. One study demonstrated that second generation Tibetans who had lived their entire lives at sea-level were still able to adapt to altitude much more quickly than both trained and untrained Caucasians. Of note, 4 of Bolivia’s 11 starters and 1 of their 3 subs in the Argentina match play for clubs based at normal elevations. Perhaps those more familiar with the team can report if that is typical for home matches and if a higher percentage of foreign based players are used for away contests in Buenos Aires, Rio, or Montevideo.

Of course performing well at altitude is not impossible (Argentina was able to earn a 2-1 victory in La Paz four years ago in fact) but it is literally an uphill battle. And if a Sherpa starts talking trash to you as you huff and puff on your next climb of Everest challenge him to a nice long race on the beach in a few months.