Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

REVIEW article

Front. Physiol.

Sec. Exercise Physiology

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphys.2025.1690121

This article is part of the Research TopicPhysiological and Pathological Responses to Hypoxia and High Altitude, Volume IIIView all 17 articles

Intelligent Monitoring and Individualized Strategies for Preventing Altitude Sickness during Altitude Training

Provisionally accepted
Longji  LiLongji Li1Tianfei  FanTianfei Fan2Zhijie  LuoZhijie Luo1Peixin  ZhuPeixin Zhu1Lifeng  ZhangLifeng Zhang1*
  • 1Strength and Conditioning Center, School of Physical Education, Chengdu Sport University, Chengdu, China
  • 2Department of Pharmacy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Altitude training is a special training method that uses a hypoxic environment to improve athletic performance. Its scientificity and safety have always attracted much attention. The hypoxic environment at high altitudes causes physiological responses, such as decreased blood oxygen saturation, increased oxidative stress, and changes in vascular permeability. By establishing a multi-level physiological indicator monitoring system, including basic indicator monitoring, special function assessment, and new technology application, the training effect can be effectively evaluated, and the training safety can be guaranteed. In terms of training optimization, the application of individualized programs based on genetic testing and intelligent monitoring systems has significantly improved the scientificity of training. Among them, the step-by-step adaptation method combined with hypoxic pretraining reduce the incidence of acute mountain sickness by 75%, and the individualized program reduce the difference in training effects by 40%. However, altitude training still faces controversial issues such as the ethics of drug intervention and the effect of simulated training. Future research should focus on the gene-environment interaction mechanism, develop new monitoring technologies, and establish a multidisciplinary collaboration system. This review focuses on the physiological mechanisms, monitoring methods, optimization strategies, limitations and future development directions of altitude training in preventing altitude sickness. This provides an important basis for the scientific practice of altitude training. By continuously optimizing the training system, altitude training will become a safe and effective method to improve athletic performance and prevent altitude sickness.

Keywords: altitude sickness1, altitude training2, hypoxic adaptation3, intelligent monitoring4, personalized intervention5

Received: 21 Aug 2025; Accepted: 07 Oct 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Li, Fan, Luo, Zhu and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Lifeng Zhang, zhanglf02@126.com

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.