Editorial: Long-term effects of hypoxic conditioning on sports performance, health and well-being

Franck Brocherie (1) , Rafael Timon (2)

1 SEP (EA7370) - French Institute of Sport (INSEP), Laboratory Sport, Expertise and Performance (EA7370)
2 UEX - Universidad de Extremadura - University of Extremadura

Our motivation for this Research Topic For decades, limiting oxygen (O 2) availability while training has boosted physiological responses and specific adaptations, improving athletes' performance (Millet et al., 2010). Interestingly, such a combination of hypoxia and exercise also appears relevant for health enhancement in different pathological populations. Since the 30s, the former Soviet Union and Russia have prescribed such an approach as a non-invasive, nonpharmacological treatment option (Brocherie and Millet, 2020) with few contraindications and satisfactory outcomes (Platonenko, 2017). Sharing the same acronym, intermittent hypoxic training or therapy (IHT)-also known as periodic/ interval hypoxia or hypoxic (pre)conditioning, among others-has seen a growing interest in the (sports) medicine and sports sciences research community (Figure 1). Within this Research Topic, we called for original research that may contribute to clarifying the different underlying mechanisms of hypoxic-and training-induced factors, likely to improve exercise performance, health and well-being of healthy participants (along the continuum of sport participation levels), patients with co-morbidities (e.g., obesity, hypertension, diabetes) and elderly people. Five original pieces of research provide translational applications for improving exercise performance and preventing and/or treating diseases.

Mots clés: altitude; resistance training; aerobic training; performance enhancement; health enhancement; inflammatory response; protein synthesis; motor unit (MU)

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Franck Brocherie, Rafael Timon. Editorial: Long-term effects of hypoxic conditioning on sports performance, health and well-being. Frontiers in Physiology, 2022, 13, ⟨10.3389/fphys.2022.1112754⟩. ⟨hal-04067199⟩