Are Altitude Gyms Lying To High Altitude Hikers?

​In this episode, we talk about simulated altitude gyms. And we explore a few of the claims people often make about this training, which can be VERY misleading to aspiring high altitude hikers, as well as a few of the actual benefits of this type of training. 

Episode Transcript:

[0:00] Alright, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode,

[0:04] we are talking about simulated attitude gyms. And we're exploring the subject, if attitude gyms are lying to you. Now, at the time of this recording, it is 2026. And the world of fitness and training is full of misinformation. You know, on one side of things, you see so many people out there who say these massive, big claims about different types of training and nutrition and this and that. And they make these wild claims and they don't really sort of say anything to back them up. They're just like, hey, this does this. And they're just like, trust me, bro, or whatever. You see this all the time. These people suck, but you can often see through them. Unless you're really, really, really dedicated to that particular topic, most of the time we can kind of see through them.

[0:52] Another type of situation where we see a lot of big claims still in 2026 and it's probably getting more and more and more of this compared to where it was 10 years ago is where we have people who make big claims about some type of training or fitness or whatever may be and they provide evidence and they'll say this then they'll quote these studies they'll say research proves this and here's a study or whatever may be and from the outlook it makes them look really good you're like, cool, this is evidence. This is great. Let's do that. But then when you dive into the evidence, you see this all the time, it just doesn't stack up. Either they're just taking random studies and ignoring the dozens of other ones out there which disprove or say the opposite of what they're saying. Or all too often you go into studies and you'll read them and it just doesn't say what the person was saying and they've just given something random. It really, really drives me mentally.

[1:45] And this is kind of what we're talking about today, because in the hiking context, one of the biggest culprits of this particular approach and this misleading approach are simulated attitude gyms. The local gyms you go down to where you're like, hey, I'm preparing for a big mountain. I don't have any attitude to train on. I'm going to go and get in this simulated attitude environment. And they take hikers who are genuinely worried about their chances on the mountain

[2:15] and they walk into the gym and they just get pumped full of lies about their product. I'm not saying everyone does this and every single person who operates an altitude gym is misleading in this way but it is still all too common in 2026 and today we're going to be diving into this in a little bit and we're going to be covering a few things that often get talked about with this type of environment and often get talked about with these gyms, which they just don't do. There isn't much evidence to back them up. And it's really, really, really misleading.

[2:48] On top of that, because there's nothing like, it's not saying these gyms are completely not worth your time or whatever may be. There are some particular benefits. I'm going to cover a few things that these can be really, really good for. So ultimately the idea behind this episode is if you are in a situation where you have a big high attitude height coming up and you're like, look, I'm a little bit worried and you see some marketing from one of these local gyms, you're like, yeah, maybe I'll go give it a go. If you go down there and you get hit with a sales pitch, you hopefully will have a better understanding of, okay.

[3:20] Are they being honest? What is they saying which actually stacks up? And what are they saying which you know, maybe not? To give you that sort of clarity. Now, if you haven't noticed already, this one might get a little bit heated. And this episode may get a little bit up there because this subject is really, really close to my heart. The reason why is I used to be one of these liars. I used to be one of these people who were incredibly misleading when people entered these gyms, completely unintentionally. And I genuinely thought I was saying the right things. But even if it was unintentional, I still spread misinformation. And when I realized, and when my eyes were open to the subject, it really pissed me off. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is just... Unacceptable. And it's still, you can probably hear in my voice, it gets me annoyed years and years and years later.

[4:20] So we're going to dive into this. Now, to give you a little bit of context on here, where I'm coming from and kind of what I'm saying about me used to being one of these liars, let's start with that. And I'll tell you the story. And if you haven't heard this before, I've been a coach and a trainer for years and years and years and years and years. Now, I first started training hikers and mountaineers probably about nine years ago, where I'd just come back from overseas. I'd been abroad for a few years, and I was like, look, I need a new gym. I need somewhere else to work out. Just come back into Sydney. And one of my friends was like, hey, we've got a position in our gym, and it just happened to be one of these simulated attitude gyms. And I got a job there, and this is the first place I'd really been exposed to hikers and mountaineers in a training sense, in the sense that I'd been hiking my whole life, but I never really considered training for it. Because, you know, you're a teenager, early 20s. I was like, yeah, whatever. Like, just go out and walk. Just go out and hike, as you do. But when I went into this gym, we had lots of people who were coming to see us to prepare for things like Everest Base Camp or Kilimanjaro or the Inca Trail or whatever it may be, these high-attitude ventures. And they wanted to prepare and get exposed to this attitude environment to best get ready for them.

[5:38] And when I first got this job, as with any type of kind of new thing where you're promoting, where you're training, whatever it may be, one of the first things you do is, well, most situations, is you get certified in that type of training. And I was set up by the owners of the gym with the National Accreditation for Attitude Training, which sounds fancy. Yeah. And it was essentially the altitude training course, which in Australia, it was the only one out there. And if you went through this, you were an accredited altitude trainer. And I went through this course and I went through this certification and through the certification, it sounded awesome. They talked about this thing, which I'd only really learned about in uni, but I hadn't really looked into it very much. And they talked about all these benefits. They said all of these cool things that this type of training will bring people. And they provided all these studies to reference it. And they said, look, this will improve this. And there's these studies you can look into which prove this and yada, yada, yada. And I did this certification. I came out and I was like, cool. This is a really, really, really awesome type of training. I can absolutely get behind this. And I can really, really feel comfortable selling this to people.

[6:48] So then we had people coming through the doors. We had aspiring hikers, aspiring mountaineers. And people who came through the doors and were checking out the gym, I hit them with The list of things. I said, it's going to do this. It's going to do this. It's going to do this. If you're climbing a mountain, this is exactly what you need. This is going to be great. And it's going to do all these amazing things. And all you need to do is just do a few sessions a week to get these adaptations. Because that's what I learned in the certification. And I genuinely believed it.

[7:16] But then something happened. I realized after months of doing this, I was like, look, this isn't just something that's just a job. I was like, you know what? I've been a trainer for years and years. I've been a coach for years and years. But you know what? Training hikers and mountaineers, this is something I really love doing. This is so much more enjoyable than all the other populations I've trained in the past. And this is something I kind of want to go all in on. I can see this being my full-time job. I can see this being my career. I can see this being a really, really cool thing. So, I did something silly. I started to dive into the topic a little bit more. I started to read everything I could about preparing for attitude, about simulated attitude training. I went back to the course that I'd done before, and I pulled up the studies that they'd quoted, and I actually read them in depth. And then I took the studies that those studies had referenced and I read those in depth and I started going through everything I could on the subject.

[8:20] And the glass shattered because I realized a lot of what this certification had said was incredibly misleading. And a lot of what I've been saying was incredibly misleading. And while there were definitely some cool benefits to this type of training, and it's not like it's completely waste of time, a lot of what I've been saying so confidently to people who trusted me, who were coming in and who were insecure about preparing for these types of things, a lot of what I've been saying was just lies, even if there are unintentional lies. And it just pissed me off. Now, that was years ago. And when I first started Submit Strength, when I first started this podcast, when I first started writing articles and blogs and all of that, I used to talk about this a lot. The wounds were still fresh. And I talked about this a lot. Then I was like, you know what? I'm just banging on about this subject too much. It gets me fired up. I don't really want to talk about it anymore. So I took a break. And I haven't really gone into detail on this in a while and that was about eight years ago when i was talking about this a lot.

[9:27] It is 2026, and I realize people are just still saying the same things about attitude training, and it's a bit crazy. So today, I want to revisit a little bit more. I want to go back to this topic and just explore a few of the things that people are often saying if you go onto a website for these attitude gyms, or if you walk in the door and you get hit with a sales pitch. And I'm going to be exploring a few of the things which, I guess, are lies, whether they're intentional or unintentional lies. They are still lies. And I think a few things that this type of training can be really, really good for. So ultimately, if you do go in the door, if you do get on a phone call, if you do look at a website, you can sort of say, oh, you know what? Do these people really understand what they're talking about? Are they being misleading, whether intentionally or unintentionally? Or are they being pretty straight up? I'm like, yeah, that's a good source of information or whatever it may be. So with that being said, we'll explore some lies, some truths, and then how to actually use this type of training or how to use this information, I should say. So, on the lies, and I'm going to say lies. I know it's a harsh word, but I am going to say it because it needs to be said.

[10:40] Attitude sickness. If someone says that using a simulated attitude chamber that you're going down to train in a few times a week or a few hours a week, and if they say to you, doing this will reduce your risk of attitude sickness, that is a lie. Again, whether it's an unintentional lie or an intentional lie, it is a lie. There are no studies showing that training in an attitude chamber for a few times a week or even an hour a day is going to reduce your risk of attitude sickness. But what these people will do and what happened in this certification is this certification and a lot of coaches will often quote studies proving that it does. And they'll say, well, it reduces attitude sickness. Here are some studies to look at. But when you look at these studies that they provide, and they always provide the same studies, it's really, really, really misleading when you dive into it. Because there are some studies which show that training in a simulated attitude chamber can reduce the risk of attitude sickness.

[11:46] These studies look at a different type of simulated attitude. These studies look at a simulated attitude training, which is not available to the public, which is not available in your local gym, which is different to what you're going to get. And it cannot be considered the same thing to this type of staff. But they'll just say, hey, it's simulated energy training. It's the same thing. But it's like going out and sort of saying, hey, if you eat this type of food, and it's kind of similar to this other type of food, it'll give you exactly the same thing. That's a terrible analogy. I didn't really think that one through. But yeah, there are studies showing that training in a hypobaric altitude chamber, which is more reserved for military and scientific experiments, and I think airplane pilots as well, there are studies showing that can reduce your risk of altitude sickness. Then in an altitude gym that you will get access to as a hiker or mountaineer, this isn't the environment you're getting, and they cannot be considered the same thing. So that's one way they're very misleading. The other way they're very misleading, and they always quote these studies, is some studies will show that training in a normobaric attitude chamber, and normobaric is what you get access to. This is the commercial one. They show this will reduce the risk of attitude sickness, but only will it reduce the risk of altitude sickness in a normobaric chamber. Meaning, if you go into a chamber.

[13:15] And if you train for a certain amount of time, and then you go spend a bunch more time in the chamber, you will have less risk of attitude sickness in that chamber. But they don't test on real attitude, which is different.

[13:28] There's two ways it's really, really, really misleading. There is nothing directly linking training in a simulated normal barricade attitude chamber, which you can get access to if you train there a few times a week or an hour a day or whatever may be, that that will reduce your risk of attitude sickness on a real mountain. If someone's saying that to you, they either do not understand their product or they have been intentionally misleading. So that's number one. Number two is people often say training in a simulated attitude chamber will improve your red blood cell count or will improve your hemoglobin count. Now, this is important because these are two adaptations which can happen with real acclimatization, and these are two adaptations which will help improve the oxygen carrying capacity in your body, which is great. Thank you.

[14:17] And again, people will sort of provide evidence for this. And there are some studies showing that if you spend time in this type of environment, in a simulated attitude chamber, or this type of simulated attitude, we can see an improvement for red blood cells. But what people in these gyms don't tell you, or they're very misleading about, is this isn't going to happen if you're training a few sessions a week. This isn't going to happen if you're training an hour a day. These results come from people who are spending hundreds of hours in this environment and to see consistent results from spending time in one of these simulated outage environments to improve your red blood cells or whatever may be to see consistent results the recommendation to spend 250 or more hours in this environment which you're never going to get training in a chamber and you're only going to get from sleeping in a tent for weeks and weeks and weeks on end. So while there can be some benefits from simulated attitude, if you're going down your local gym and they're saying, yeah, it'll give you more red blood cells and more hemoglobin, and they're saying that 100% certainty from training three times a week for 30 minutes or spending a couple of hours a day or whatever it may be, it's not going to be enough.

[15:37] You might get that from sleeping in a tent, but that's not what we're talking about today. So that's number two. And then number three is if they come in and they say, hey, this will pre-acclimatize you. Now, this is pretty much the same thing as red blood cells or hemoglobin. There's a lot of stuff going on with acclimatization. When we go up to the mountain, the body's responding to altitude, getting used to attitude. There's a lot of things that goes into acclimatization. But one of the big things when people are talking about pre-acclimatization is red blood cells, is hemoglobin, or whatever it may be. And if you go into one of these gyms and they say, this will pre-acclimatize you, or this will give you whatever it may be, again, they're probably being pretty misleading.

[16:16] So they're kind of the big things. And they are big things. Because one of the main reasons people are doing this is because they're worried about attitude sickness. They're worried about spending all this time, money, and effort going over to Nepal and trekking Everest Base Camp and getting attitude sickness and having to leave. And if someone's just filling you with false hope to sell their product, it's not great.

[16:40] But saying that, they're the three big lies we often see. I'm not saying, even with all of this, even though how frustrated I get with this topic and how close it is to my heart, I am not saying that.

[16:53] That training in an attitude gym is all bad. There can be some good benefits. And if you go into a gym or you go into a website and they talk about these kinds of benefits and they're like, hey, in a measured way, it may not give you this, or they may just ignore the attitude sickness. And that's fine. If they don't mention it, totally good. And if they're a little bit more measured around, hey, this will improve certain things, which can help you on the mountain, that's two thumbs up. That's great. That means they're being honest about their product. So I'll kind of cover the main ones. Number one, probably the biggest benefit you get from this type of thing, if you're just going into an altitude chamber, training a few times a week or whatever it may be, is it can help your breathing. Now, one of the things that will happen in the acclimatization process is there's something called ventilatory acclimatization, where certain things with your breathing in the initial stages of exposure to altitude will change, will adapt to help you up at altitude.

[17:48] Training in one of these gyms can help that. Now, with this, your ventilatory acclimatization is probably the quickest thing that happens at natural altitude, but if you can get this out of the way or get a little head start on this in an altitude gym, that's pretty good. That's great because a lot of people are worried about their breathing. A lot of people are stressed about their breathing. A lot of people find when they get short of breath, they start getting anxious and nervous and this and that, and this can probably help that. It It won't completely fix the issue, but it can be beneficial. So if you go into one of these gyms and they say, hey, it will improve your ventilation and attitude, or it will improve your breathing and attitude, that's fair enough to say it.

[18:27] So that's all well and good. Number two benefit to this is training in a simulated

[18:34] attitude gym can probably help you feel more comfortable in a real high attitude environment. And when we say more comfortable, that could mean a bunch of different things. That could mean your breathing's a little bit happier. That could mean you're just not getting quite as tired. That could mean a bunch of different things. And if someone says, hey, going up on the mountain, if you've done this training in the gym, you may feel a bit more comfortable. That's fair enough to say and that's all well and good because that's very reasonable, there's a lot of things that can go into that and that's a great benefit because again a lot of people are worried about how their body's going to respond and as long as we're saying you're more comfortable or you'll feel a bit better or you may not feel as bad and not saying, this will reduce the risk of attitude sickness that's all good so that's another good benefit, number three training in a simulated attitude gym can be good to improve your endurance can be good to improve your aerobic fitness that's a pretty big deal because improving fitness improving endurance is always going to be super beneficial for a hiker on top of that for a high attitude hiker it's going to be super beneficial as well because the less tired we get the more we can perform, the more comfortable we're going to feel. Now, to be clear, there is not a direct link to increased fitness or increased endurance and your reduced risk of attitude sickness.

[19:55] But one thing we want to avoid when we're up on the mountain is fatigue. If we get to that exhausted state where we're absolutely tired and knackered and got nothing left, that can be a risk factor for attitude sickness. So anything we do to improve our fitness, improve our endurance can be good. So if you're training this and you're like, hey, I am aware that this may not directly reduce my risk of attitude sickness, but I'm trying to improve my endurance and improve my aerobic fitness, which is always going to be good. Two thumbs up. Happy days. That's great.

[20:25] The next one is training in a simulated attitude gym can help you mentally prepare for the mountain. Now, this may sound a bit woo-woo, but it is important. It is valuable because a lot of people, again, are worried, are stressed about going in these environments. They're just concerned about what's going to happen if I get short of breath, what's going to happen if I just cannot recover in between big climbs or whatever it may be, and they can just build stress and stress and stress and stress. So training in this type of environment, getting exposure to this type of thing can mentally help us prepare, can mentally help us feel a bit better in our preparations and can mentally if we get into a dodgy situation or we're up on the mountain in the real altitude and we get out of breath, we can be like, ah, you know what? I'm familiar with this feeling. I've done this in the gym. It's not a big deal. Yeah, it's uncomfortable, but it's not going to freak me out. That is very valuable. So again, if someone says, hey, this will help you prepare mentally, expose you to a few different challenges so you can get that exposure therapy or whatever it may be. Cool. That's great.

[21:24] And the last good benefit of this type of thing, and again, it doesn't get talked about enough, is a like-minded community. In the sense, if you're going down to a simulated attitude gym, there's probably a selection of like, there's probably three different types of people in those gyms. There's endurance athletes who are training at sea level. So people are trying to improve their cycling or their running or their swimming or something like that. There's probably people who just like general fitness and they just want a bit more of a challenge. And they're like, hey, I like HIIT. I like working really hard. I want to go into a simulated gym to give me yourself an edge. And probably the third type of person are other hikers and mountaineers, other people who are going and doing similar things to you. In all honesty, training for a big adventure like this can be very, very lonely a lot of the time. Friends and families don't really understand why you're doing this. People who you train with or go and exercise with are probably doing different things and And preparing for these types of environments and these types of trips can be lonely a lot of the time. So going into a gym where there's actually other people who understand, who are going through similar struggles, that can be a really big benefit. And if someone says, hey, you're going to come down and meet all these people who've done these trips before, you can ask them questions, or we can just build each other up. That's cool. That's awesome. Even just going into a gym and just seeing mountains on the wall, and you're like, yeah, I'm in the right place. That's really, really powerful. And that can be a really good benefit.

[22:47] And they're probably, to my eyes, the best benefits of this type of thing, the best truths. And if you're walking in a gym and someone's saying these types of things, two thumbs up, great, that sounds good. And if you want to do it, all well and good.

[23:01] So there we go. Now, as a summary, now that you've kind of heard this, cool, interesting, cool information, how can you practically use this? Well, it's pretty simple. And kind of the intention of this episode was to give you this practical situation. If you are interested in a simulated attitude, Jim, that is all good. All well and good. Happy days. Go in, look around, check it out. Get on a phone call, chat with them, whatever that is. And just listen to what the people say to you. listen to what the trainer says in the gym or listen to what the salesperson says on the phone, whatever it may be. If they say, hey, cool, you're training for this hike. This can be a nice addition for your training. It can give you some exposure to this environment. It might help your breathing, can help you feel a bit more comfortable, improve your fitness. It can just be a nice place to connect and be in a great environment of people building each other up for these types of trips. Great. That's two thumbs up. And they're like being really honest and that's awesome but if they come in hot and one of the first things they say is like if you come in and train a few days a week and it's going to reduce your risk of attitude sickness or it's going to improve your red blood cells or pre-acclimatize you well that's sort of a little flag and it's not saying hey you got to run the other way whatever may be but just take a second because either they do not understand their product or they're being misleading so that gives you the options of like, well, okay, cool.

[24:24] I still want to be in this environment. So I'm going to go in, I'm going to train, but I'm just going to take what they say with a grain of salt. That's kind of fine. Or if they've been really red hot about this and you're like, I'm not really sure, then maybe it might be a sign to kind of like either ask them, like, do you genuinely believe this? But in all honesty, no one's going to say that. Or maybe just look somewhere else.

[24:47] That's kind of what we want to look at here.

[24:50] But all in all, I hope that makes sense. As you can tell, I do get a little bit fired up on this subject because I hate the fact that I spent so long saying these things. And I hate the fact that I was being misleading about this type of stuff. And I hate the fact that I did a nationally accredited certification, which was just wrong.

[25:11] Annoying me to this day. But either way, with that being said, I'm going to wrap things up here. I hope this was useful. I hope this helps a few people. And I hope it gives a little bit of insight. And I hope in eight years since I've been talking about this, I hope in the next eight years, we will see less and less and less and less of these big claims, which may not be 100% true. So with that being said, I'm going to finish things up here. I hope you've enjoyed it. Last thing I'll always say, as I always say in these episodes, if you were a hiker, mountaineer, preparing for a big adventure, and if you wanted a little bit of help with your training, a bit of personalized help with your training, you can learn more about our online personal training for hikers at summitstrength.com.au online. So with that being said, thank you for listening. Hope you've enjoyed it and we'll talk to you very soon. Bye.

Want to get
fit, strong and resilient
for your
hiking adventures?

Check out
​The Online Summit Program