hi, i’m a new figure skating fan and i’m unsure of who to ask and this isn’t really ice dance related so i completely get it if you don’t answer. during 4cc this year, there was a lot of talk about the altitude of colorado. how does the altitude affect skaters? i mainly saw it in relation to single skaters so does it affect jumps and such? or is it like a stamina thing, in which case it also affects ice dancers? thank you!
So skating requires a specific combination of cardiovascular endurance, muscular endurance, and muscular power. Power specifically referring to the ability to generate force as quickly as possible. When your body metabolizes sugars to create ATP for your muscles it can do it through two different pathways:
Anaerobic referring to without oxygen and aerobic with oxygen. Now I’m not going to torture you with the Krebs cycle but the aerobic pathway is 18x more efficient than the anaerobic pathway which is known as glycolysis. However, when say you do a jump, an activity that requires more force and more fuel for your muscles to create that force, your blood isn’t transporting anymore blood (and therefore anymore oxygen) than normal. The cells in the muscles first use their immediate creatine phosphate stores and then undergo glycolysis to get ATP to produce this force.
After about 90-120 seconds, your body’s heart rate rises and the rate at which your circulatory system delivers oxygen to your muscles allows them to switch to aerobic respiration which is more efficient and doesn’t produce lactic acid. However, you then need to breathe more rapidly and more deeply to inhale enough oxygen to saturate your blood to meet that increased muscular demand. At altitude, there is physically less oxygen in the air. So you can inhale the same volume of air, maxing out how your lungs expand, but with less oxygen your body must compensate with increased blood pressure and heart rate and/or glycolysis.
If you’ve ever exercised at altitude or fully gotten altitude sickness, the lack of oxygen distribution to your limbs can make it feel like your legs are wading through jello or they’re literally about to collapse. Prolonged altitude exposure exercise like running a 10k, alpine or nordic skiing, playing a game of soccer, doing a long hike, etc. often leads to headaches, chest pain, lightheadedness, and dizziness. All of which are not great when you’re spinning, twizzling, and/or jumping very quickly. Sometimes, these symptoms can hit harder after finishing exercise and you can have a harder time breathing simply sitting or standing.
Skating has a unique combination of steady state cardio (stroking, crossovers), explosive power (jumps, landings, lift entrances), and high demand muscular endurance (step sequences, one foot sequences, holding spin positions, lifts). Typically, so while the first difficult elements done in those first 90 seconds of programs are relatively unaffected by altitude basic stroking and endurance elements like lifts, step sequences, and difficult spin positions demand a lot more oxygen that’s not there. Elevated heart rate, increased breath rate, and glycolysis in the leg muscles to increase metabolic availability can lead to cramps, dizziness, and general muscle weakness, and explosive elements near the end of programs can simply not have enough oomph to cross the finish line.
I would say the discipline most affected by altitude is pairs because it has by far the most endurance elements as lifts last far longer than ice dance, and the most dangerous if someone gets a cramp or their muscles give out midlift. In singles, a skater might pop if they don’t have enough lift off on a jump landing but generally unless they get very dizzy or disoriented it’s not as much of a safety issue. Ice dance the biggest issues usually appear in lifts and step sequences as skaters get sloppy and don’t have the energy to bend their knees and extend fully. But unless dancers are visibly tripping or wobbly whether that’s reflected by the tech panel is up to politics.
Hope that answers your question!
