OT: Altitude and Football Players
In endurance sports, training at high altitudes corresponds to improved performance at lower altitudes - the reason that runners from Boulder Running Club are regularly competing near the top of the national level in all age groups, and why cyclists buy altitude tents for sleeping in.
I began to wonder about football - wouldn't it make sense that WRs and DBs would be better off when coming from altitude? They do an awful lot of running in every game, so even though they are generally running sprints, I would say that they are endurance athletes. So, I made a chart of every school that has a player from Colorado (arbitrary high altitude state) and at which positions they play. Here is what I found.
42 of the 120 FBS schools have 210 rostered athletes from Colorado. Assuming there are 85 players per team, that's about 2.1% of the FBS population. If you take out Colorado (51), Colorado State (45), and Air Force (6), all considered local, there are 108 FBS athletes in 39 schools, 1.1% of the FBS population. The largest numbers outside these? Wyoming (31), San Diego State (7), Kansas State (6), Brigham Young and Nebraska (5 ea.). Michigan has 2, Greg Banks and Steve Watson.
As a quick comparison, I have, while writing this, pulled the numbers for Michigan athletes. 353 athletes at 43 schools. 3.5% of FBS population. Take out Michigan State (59), Michigan (58), Central Michigan (51), Eastern Michigan (42), and Western Michigan (35) as local and you are left with... 108 FBS athletes in 38 schools, 1.1% of the FBS population. That's weird... but I haven't pursued that at all.
OL (36) is the most common CO player type, with LB (32) and DB (29) in 2nd and 3rd. WR (17) and TE (16) lag distantly behind where I thought they would be, while DT (20) and DT (15) are about where expected. The numbers that make the most sense are the QB numbers - only 10. It takes effort to adjust to the massive change in altitude outside of Colorado - 5 of the QBs play in CO for 2 schools, 5 play outside of CO for 5 schools.
Now, I wonder why there are less WRs than expected? That makes almost no sense.
Possible Reasons:
| CO On Roster | QB | HB | FB | WR | TE | OL | K | DT | DE | LB | DB | P | LS |
| 210 | 10 | 15 | 7 | 17 | 16 | 36 | 9 | 20 | 15 | 32 | 29 | 2 | 1 |
- Film is from altitude, so players are on the same level as those at lower altitude.
- Colorado plays better than expected away from home, generally. Makes up for talent gap.
- Camps are biased against players from altitude.
- Camps are short burst, with only a few plays observed, not long-term.
- Tendancies to not recruit CO kids means less CO kids invited to camps.
December 7th, 2009 at 2:31 AM ^
Interesting premise, I am a little confused what you are trying to prove with your findings. Although the WR number seems low, I'm not sure if the variance is significant. The point you are trying to prove is interesting, but I don't think looking at the number of players from each position will give a statistically significant number.
FWIW - Here is the biochemistry behind the high altitude training:
If you train at altitude you will secrete EPO (a natural hormone which is used as a PED) which signals for the body to make more Red Blood Cells. More RBCs leads to better oxygenation and better performance.
In terms of actual performance, yes, people from high altitudes will perform better in endurance events, however, this advantage will go away if you move to a low altitude area. The advantage is for the short-term not long term.
December 7th, 2009 at 2:40 AM ^
I don't know. I just sort of had one expectation, and the data didn't fit it, so I thought it was interesting enough to post.
I did forget about how temporary the altitude effect is, thank you for that. I should know better, I have done altitude training for cycling. That kind of disproves my overall theme with the endurance thing.
HOWEVA, the Quarterback thing still sort of stands - there's a very low number of QB's from CO that make it outside CO. I think this might be because they under-throw a lot when brought down out of altitude to camps. It takes an extra year to make that adjustment, in all likelihood.
December 7th, 2009 at 10:49 AM ^
There are a few things that are missing in your analysis when it comes to altitude training. First and foremost is that living and training at altitude doesn't have as much of an effect as is commonly thought. The body's adaptive response that occurs from training at altitude is a hindrance to sea level performance. The ventilatory acclimatization that takes place is a minor negative, however the major problem is in the decreased intensity that follows from the lack of oxygen which depending on the person can lead to de-training. The ideal situation for including altitude in one's training plan is to live high (above 6000 ft) and train low (sea-level). (http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/40/2/e3.abstract for one article, do a google on "Live High, Train Low" and you can get a lot more)
Additionally, looking at Colorado, there are big differences between athletes coming from say Denver versus athletes coming from the Arkansas Valley. Those in Denver aren't really living high enough for a major impact in RBC to be seen because the optimal range for altitude effects on athletes is about 2000-5000m (~6500-15000 ft). While those in the Arkansas Valley are higher, they can't train low, and would be coming from primarily smaller programs with less of a chance of being seen.