The effect of maternal exercise and altitude training on performance in hypoxic environment: a brief review

Abstract

Environmental and maternal exercise experienced even during the very earliest stages of life has the potential to cause developmental changes. The growing evidence demonstrated that diverse environmental stressors affect offspring in various aspects in early stage of life and can be transmitted directly or indirectly by both parental lines. The development of normobaric hypoxic environment facilities began in recent years after athletes born and trained at high altitude continued to update their records in sports competition, especially marathons and other endurance sports. Although a large number of studies have proved the effect of hypoxic training in the field of sports science and competition, the effectiveness of this training model on exercise performance/capacity and physiological variables is still controversial. Therefore, this study makes a brief review of the papers related to this scope and attempted to understand the potential mechanism of maternal exercise in hypoxic environment on exercise performance and reduction of metabolic risk factors.