AFL clubs love high-altitude training camps but do they actually do
much for the players?
by: Nick Smart
From: News Limited Network
December 12, 2012 1:30PM
The Gold Coast Suns, pictured here hiking the Grand Canyon, are one of many clubs sold by the
benefits of high-altitude training. Picture: Ben Jaensch. Source: Supplied
OVERSEAS high-altitude training for AFL clubs is all the rage these days.
Once upon a time, a pre-season training trip consisted of a drive to the surf at Breamlea to run up
the sand dunes followed by a barbeque and beers on the beach.This was the approach of former
Geelong coach Bob Davis, and it worked as he led the Cats to the 1963 premiership.
But that was a long time ago:
Today, many clubs think nothing of spending many thousands of dollars to send their players
overseas as they search to gain a competitive edge in a game of centimeters getting smaller by the
year. Players on these trips spend up to two weeks climbing mountains, hiking in the snow, training
and pushing themselves to the point of exhaustion up to 3000m above sea level.
Lions in Arizona
The Brisbane Lions battle on in Arizona. Source: Supplied
They then inevitably return home and speak of their improved fitness, how tight the group now is
and the benefits of the camp. Some clubs swear by it, others like Geelong have never been further
than Falls Creek yet have won three flags in six years.
With football department spending escalating like an arms race, it poses the question: Are these
high-altitude trips sports science magic or just over-hyped holidays?
St Kilda - under former coach Grant Thomas - set the trend in 2004 when it paid a bomb to fly to
South Africa and train 1343m above sea level.
Collingwood followed a year later when the Pies headed off to Northern Arizona University, situated
2100m above sea level and the home of a renowned high-altitude training center. The club's fitness
boss David Buttifant had visited the university a year earlier with some Olympic athletes before he
came to the club. The Magpies have returned every year until this one - they instead headed to
Utah, where North Melbourne also trained.
North Melbourne in Utah
North Melbourne's pre-season training camp in Utah last week.
Northern Arizona University is located in Flagstaff, Arizona - or "Flag" as the locals call it - a quaint
mountain town home to 60,000 people, two hours out of Phoenix and very close to the Grand
Canyon. It is also now a regular destination for AFL clubs, including Carlton, the Brisbane Lions and
Gold Coast in the past few weeks.
Suns coach Guy McKenna went on two trips to Arizona when he was an assistant at the Magpies,
and when he got a team of his own, it was high on his to-do list. The Suns' playing group has now
been on two trips to the US. "It was a no-brainer because I could see the benefits in the playing
group," McKenna told News Limited. "Some of the scientific boffins out there say there are minimal
gains, but I think that is where AFL is at. You look at the Sydney-Hawthorn Grand Final this year, a
percentage or clearance here or there means you win games of footy. You need a percentage you
can pinch from somewhere and I think this type of conditioning relates to on-field performance.
Given what I saw from two camps in Arizona (with Collingwood), I was going to bring my group back
wherever I ended up, that's for sure. I saw the immediate benefits and the long-term benefits."
Pies in Arizona
Collingwood footballers walk the Grand Canyon in 2011.
The craze has become a business for places like Northern Arizona University, who rent their facilities
to the AFL clubs. Sports management companies co-ordinate the camps in conjunction with the
universities. Hypo2 Sport Management has run the altitude camps for Gold Coast, Brisbane, Carlton
and Collingwood. Company owner Sean Anthony, who is currently in Utah with the Magpies, said he
was not surprised by the popularity of the camps. "I think, in the world of elite sport, that everyone
watches what everyone else does," he said.
"There are not a lot of training secrets and so when a club tries something a little off the beaten path
and it appears to reap benefits, like Collingwood doing altitude training from 2005 to the present
day, then other teams begin to look at how to do something similar. And it's a very small industry, so
if you have success with one team, team members who were part of that success inevitably move on
to other teams and then want to emulate that."
NAU spokesman Steven Shaff said the institution is happy to accommodate the clubs, even though
they clash with university sport teams. There are definite physiological as well as mental gains made
by the players and staff by going away for a training camp, whether it be to altitude or not.
"Northern Arizona University and the Flagstaff community welcome visiting teams from around the
world. It is point of pride for the campus to have the top teams in a variety of sports train here," he
said.
"The university schedules the workouts and training sessions for the international teams around the
schedules for the intercollegiate teams. The facilities can be very busy during visits by international
teams but it is a welcome problem as the camps are such an exciting part of life on the Northern
Arizona University campus."
Carlton in Arizona
Carlton hike Mt Humphreys in Arizona with coach Mick Malthouse leading the way. Supplied by
Carlton FC. Source: Supplied
Altitude training has become a crucial part of the training program for elite athletes as it seen to
stimulate the production of red blood cells because of lower oxygen levels.
But does training for two weeks before returning to lower altitudes actually do anything for the
players?
There are some skeptics, such as Australian Olympic marathon runner Lee Troop.
"For 10 days there's no effect, there's no benefit whatsoever in doing altitude training for that long,"
Troop told the Herald Sun in 2005. You've got to be there for at least 21 days to help increase the
red blood cell (count)... ideally, a month. I understand they have got an altitude chamber but there
are so many variables that go into altitude training. So as far as them saying they're going to altitude
and this is what elite athletes do, it was just a crock. If they were serious they would've been there
for three weeks, if not more. It just bewilders me that people have got more money than sense."
But Australian Sport Performance Network director Kate Veidreyaki says the science is proven.
"There is definite benefit in athletes, particularly endurance type athletes such as AFL players, in
attending altitude training camps," she said.
"The main physiological benefits the players will receive from training at altitude is an increase in
their red blood cell count, which directly relates to an increase in the bloods oxygen carrying
capacity."
Pies in Utah
Nathan Buckley and Andrew Krakouer in Utah. Picture: Collingwoodfc.com.au Source: Supplied
When asked if the gains made are more mental than physical, Veidreyaki said:
"There are definite physiological as well as mental gains made by the players and staff by going away
for a training camp, whether it be to altitude or not. By removing a team from their usual
environment and placing them in a location where they are surrounded by their teammates,
coaching and support staff, away from media attention and possible other distractions of their daily
lives, put their mindset in a whole new place. They live, breathe and think football. Training camps
are a great tool to introduce new players to the team and expose them to training expectations and
to work on training ethic and culture. The psychological benefits are more difficult to quantify as
they are less black and white in comparison to drawing blood and measuring the red blood cell
count."
McKenna, who just returned from Arizona with his Suns' players, agreed with the professional
assessment.
"They (the players) live in each other's back pocket and get to know each other, so it is a fasttracking of building chemistry in the group," he said. "(But) if we just got the chemistry response and
didn't get a physical adaptation to it, we wouldn't go. The one sort of measurable response is the
ability to endure and to stay hard and strong. That's what you can do there because it is not a
normal way of life for these players who live and play at sea-level to have to endure this shock to the
system."
Anthony, who has been involved in the management of altitude training sites for 16 years, said the
camps were about giving teams a winning edge, however small.
"The gains from altitude training seem, from the outside looking in, to be quite small - perhaps one
to three per cent," he said.
"But in high level sport where the margins of victory are so unbelievably small and the levels of
fitness and talent of the athletes so similar, such a seemingly small percentage can actually be a
game-changer and often means the difference between winning and losing. In my experience of
working with the AFL teams, they are very smart about getting the most out of the relatively short
altitude camps. And they are smart about knowing what they don't know as well, taking advantage
of the ample outside resources in Australia's greater sport science community to bolster their
knowledge base and craft as efficient an altitude camp as possible."
Jacob Gillbee
McKenna said he uses the training camps to gauge the mental strength of his players.
"With any good group or organisation, it is about finding out about your individual mental and
physical capabilities," the Suns coach said.
"Once you find out who is good, bad, indifferent or average, you get to understand which players at
certain stages you need to encourage to push harder. And I'm sure Collingwood would say after four
or five years of doing that, they learn to endure longer."
Veidreyaki said there were different schools of thought in regards to duration of exposure to altitude
and subsequent long-term benefits. "Logical thinking would deduct that the longer the exposure, the
longer the benefits," she said. "In the case of AFL teams doing altitude training in OctoberNovember, they are not conducting these camps in order to have a better chance to win on actual
Grand Final day in September the following year. The presumed intention of these camps being
conducted when they are in the year, is to attempt to improve the quality and productivity of the
training sessions of the players during the preseason/early season, which will have a positive impact
on the team come game time."
So - whether you are a believer or not - expect to see clubs returning year after year.
Discussion:
1. Discuss the physiological benefits of altitude training:
2. Explain how this improves performance:
3. Given the relatively short lived benefits of altitude training, would you expect the adaptations to
have a big impact later in the season? Justify your answer:
4. Many experts consider the psychological benefits to be the main advantage for undertaking the
camps. Explain the psychological benefits:
5. Athletes such as cyclists also undertake altitude training. During the initial stages of the training,
they may see results such as these listed below. Explain what the graph is showing and explain why
this is the case:
VO2 Comparison
70
VO2 ml/kg/min
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
50 W
100W
150W
200W
Power
Sea level
Altitude
6. Experts recommend a ‘live high train low’ approach. Explain this and discuss the comment.