Can I just use some sort of face mask instead of exercising in an altitude chamber?

I have read how some athletes will exercise in chambers that mimic the effects of being at very high altitudes, most importantly the lack of oxygen. This lack of oxygen basically forces your body to do more with less so that you need to spend much less time exersising and will get in shape faster.

What I want to know is why should I go through all of the trouble of a big expensive chamber, instead of just wearing some sort of mask that would obstruct my breathing? Is there something vital I am missing here, or have I just foolishly given away a million-dollar fitness machine idea to you thieving bastards?

Air doesn’t only go in and out of your mouth. Pressure is exerted on all parts of your body and pressure is a function of altitude. The body absorbs gases differently at different pressures.

I’m not convinced that there is any reason why wearing a mask wouldn’t give you the same results as a chamber. The real problem is trying to exercise with a mask on, probably nearly impossible. I’ve been to somewhat high altitude while hiking (18,000’) and wouldn’t have been able to deal with anything obstructing my mouth and nose.

As I understand it, the point of working out at real or artificial high altitude is not to save time. The goal is forcing your body to make more red blood cells. With more red blood cells, you get better oxygen delivery and better endurance.

And as I understand it it’s not only about exercising on high altitude. It’s about living there for an extended period of time.

I don’t think you can simply obstruct your breathing mechanically. It will increase CO2 concentration in your lungs, making you feel out of breath. So you’ll end up breathing harder to expel the CO2, and at the same time inhale as much oxygen as you would without the mask. All you’re doing is excercising the chest muscles, which isn’t the goal of high altitude training (as AskNott explained).

However, I think breathing a special low-oxygen air from a tank would be just as effective. It wouldn’t be too hard to build an excercise room with low oxygen density - simply make the room reasonably airtight, and feed some extra nitrogen from a tank. No idea why this isn’t done.

There are high-altitude exercise chambers in some NYC gyms, at least I’ve read about them. And while it is true that most benefit from training at altitude is due to the red blood cell production from long term exposure, I wonder if you’d get some of that benefit from extended exercise at virtual altitude. It could be a partial acclimitization.

This article seems like a good summary of the issues: http://www.sumeria.net/oxy/altitude.html

I think that a mask delivering high-altitude air would simulate altitude to the body. It would be hard to come up with a design that didn’t make it extremely uncomfortable to exercise while wearing it.