The science behind training and playing at the coast and at altitude

The rugby season has been a little strange with the timelines and summer cycles and players have been battling to handle some of the harsh 40-degree heat conditions.

How do professional athletes with finely tuned bodies prepare for such an undertaking?

Performance is everything in sport and when you start getting to the semifinals and finals of tournaments, this means these teams have been exceptional over the course of a few short months.

Everything they are doing is at a higher level of performance than other teams.

When you have two teams performing at their best, the difference between winning and losing comes down to small variances: star players getting injured, fatigue, altitude and environmental conditions.

Poor conditioning can lead to injuries in all sports. Picture: Getty Images

Teams traveling from the coastal areas to Johannesburg and Pretoria have a harder time dealing with environmental issues because the conditions are vastly different – thinner air, less oxygen at altitude, hotter and dryer.

When you change the environmental conditions drastically such as going from the coast to 1400 – 1700m above sea-level, it throws an athletes internal processing system out of sync.

Your body does adapt because the period of time is so short; there are limitations to how much change can happen.

You might be thinking, “well these are elite athletes and they should be able to cope”, but it comes down to how fit you are and what type of body you have.

Skinny ultra-marathon runners are built like that for a reason and the distance they need to cover in all conditions requires them to be super lean and mean.

Elite marathon athletes, like world record-holder Eliud Kipchoge, are thin and can go further for longer. Picture: AFP

This is quite the opposite for rugby players. They are carrying a brick house of muscle and the more muscle you have, the more heat it produces; exactly why front rowers will struggle more than any other player on the field.

The more players move, the more energy is created and you sweat to help release the energy and cool down the body.

There are decreased oxygen levels at high altitude and players work twice as hard to keep internal mechanisms in check.

Big guys that are tired, don’t move, run or tackle as much and this could provide an opportunity for opposing teams to capitalise. If coastal teams have an unfair advantage, what can players and teams do to gain a fairer advantage?

Hydration: Players should be screened in lab conditions on how much fluids and minerals are lost at the coast in different temperatures. This is vital for performance output and once their sports science teams know this, they can make adjustments when they tour in hotter regions.

Calculated Rotations: Sounds simple but it will be hard to rotate your best player. Coaches should use GPS tracking systems to measure who is getting fatigued faster or who needs to be substituted. If players are fatigued, this places them at a higher risk of injury. Use science to keep players hydrated.

Train your Lungs: There is a lot of research into peak performance. Teams can use “home” lung capacity tools like AiroFit Breathing Trainer, which is popular in ironman, triathletes and marathon runners. Tools like these are added to an athlete’s daily routine which over time make their lungs more efficient and when breathing in, the force, power and volume of air is greater, which helps keep the bodies ATP energy system running better. At high altitude, if athletes from coastal areas work on having stronger, more powerful lungs then when they are at higher altitude, they are extracting more oxygen in the air with the same breath.

Saunas: This might induce a little chuckle but more and more research is coming out on the benefit of athlete endurance. Saunas help flush out toxins and reduce muscle stiffness and soreness but also teach the body to cope with high temperatures. This should be a regular post-training activity for all rugby to prepare players better for hotter conditions. Your body will adapt to the stress and be able to be pushed for longer.

Exoskeleton tech: There are companies that specialise in heat repelling clothing that not only help repel heat to keep your body temperature constant, but also offer compression technology which allows lactic acid to build up and toxins to be squeezed or flushed out of your system quicker.

I get so exited talking about sports science performance and technology because of the benefits that it can bring a team that is competing against an unfair advantage. When you are talking about teams playing at elite level, games are won by them having a strategy that levels the playing fields so that skill and tactics alone are responsible for a win.

Sports scientist Sean van Staden

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