The effect of hypoxia on the respiratory compensation point and critical power.

Abstract

Many studies were done investigating the effects of hypoxia on Respiratory Compensation Point (RCP) and Critical Power (CP). However, no studies were done to investigate the relationship between RCP and CP in hypoxic condition, which are thought to have a common underlying mechanism. The aim of this study is to examine the effects of hypoxia on the relationship between CP and RCP. Eleven well-trained male cyclists volunteered in this study (mean ± SD; age 27 ± 6.6 years, height 179 ± 7.5 cm, body mass 78.5 ± 7.9 kg). Participant age was (18-35 years), training history was a minimum of 2 years of cycling training history, with 7 hours per week average training volume, free from injury or illness. Participants attended three times to perform incremental exercise tests on an electronically braked cycle ergometer. Experimental protocol was done once in normoxia (NORM: FiO2 of ≈0.155), and once in normobaric hypoxia (HYPO: FiO2 ≈0.155). Testing order of conditions was single-blinded, randomized and counterbalanced. Results showed that at GET and RCP, there was a significant main effect of HYPO on power, VO2, VCO2, RER, %SpO2, and VO2peak (P< 0.05). Furthermore, CP was significantly correlated to RCP, and revealed a strong effect size (r2 = 0.93, P

Date of Award	2021
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	HBKU College of Health & Life Sciences