Acclimatize at home to the altitude

During the months of June and July, some strange grumbling noises come out of my apartment at night. The electricity bill is also a bit on the high side. Now you might think I have an illegal drug lab at home and I am growing marijuana, but no, that is not the case. I am pre-acclimatizing at home in preparation for our expedition to Pik Korzhenevskaya and Pik Communisma, both mountains above 7,000 meters high.


But how does it work? Altitudedream.com sponsors two hypoxic tents that we can install above our beds (two different types). The tents come with a kind of generator (which makes that humming sound) that filters the oxygen out of the air and blows it into the altitude tent. This way you can simulate up to an altitude of 6,400m, although we never sleep higher than 4,000m in our tents (Gijs tried that once, but it was not his best idea). We slept in these tents for a total of 4 weeks, adjusting the altitude a little higher each night so that the oxygen levels in our blood always remained around 88%-92%. In this way, our body continuously adapts to the lack of oxygen by producing more red blood cells.

The Dream Cap is the smallest high altitude tent and at the same time a partner-friendly solution 😉 .


We can also connect the altitude generator to a mask. With this mask, you can train both passively - by watching TV, for example - and actively - by training on an exercise bike, for example. Especially the latter is very heavy. Training with oxygen levels in your blood as low as 70% is really tough, but comparable to climbing a real mountain!


The only alternative to this is to drive to the Alps and climb some 4000m of mountains. Unfortunately, that is at least a 10-hour drive for us and therefore not an option. So this is our way of acclimatizing in the Dutch 'mountains'. And the work is pretty good!


But why? Two years ago when we climbed Khan Tengri (7,000m), we used this technique for the first time. It made it possible for us to climb the mountain in 10 days instead of the 20 days we needed for Pik Lenin (7,134m). In addition, I had a lot less headache, which was also not annoying! Also going directly from sea level to the base camp at 4,000m would not be ideal without pre-acclimatization.


To be honest, of course it sleeps better without such a hypoxic tent than with and I certainly notice that I don't wake up as fresh as normal. But it is definitely worth it and definitely a way of pre-acclimatizing that works! Thanks to Altitudedream.com

About Altitude Dream

Altitude Dream is the market leader in the Benelux in the field of altitude training. For more than 10 years we have been helping athletes realize their dreams and bringing people without altitude sickness to the mountain of their dreams. Altitude Dream is not a company. Altitude Dream is a dream. A dream that leads to the maximum use of our possibilities.