haemoglobin percentage

[jfo]

I donored blood today.
Before I did that my haemoglobin percentage was only 8.3. For men it is supposed to be from 8.4 to 11.2.
I guess this does influenze my erging performance negatively as my blods will not be able to transport oxygen optimally.
I will change my food consumption...more beans, no milk while eating dinner etc. But:
-How much does the low haemoglobin percentage influence performance?
-How long time does it take to increase it to higher level?

[Citroen]

-How much does the low haemoglobin percentage influence performance?

Ask the pro-cyclists in the Tour de France. There's been much discussion of blood doping for many years.

-How long time does it take to increase it to higher level?

It's going to depend on a number of factors. You can increase it quicker with EPO.

[Jim Barry]

In my experience giving blood and training it's a good week of 90-95% of yourself. I find I can go out about as hard for a good while and then it all comes apart. That's sort of a training mistake. I would just add a few seconds to your expected pace for a week. After that week I've found a a few sessions that seem to stand out like a spike. I can not find anything to prove it, but its almost as if the body over-produces red blood cells for a few days until it gets the signal that there are in fact "too many". Watch for it. It'd be interesting if you get that effect too.

(edit: Perhaps I did not address the question about your regularly low red blood cell count, but take my advice about the short term for what it's worth)

[Bob S.]

I can not find anything to prove it, but its almost as if the body over-produces red blood cells for a few days until it gets the signal that there are in fact "too many". Watch for it. It'd be interesting if you get that effect too.

I don't know whether this is pertinent or not, but I had an experience today that was a repeat of previous similar experiences. I did my first higher altitude hike of the year yesterday. It wasn't a big deal - about 80 minutes, ranging from 8-9000 feet of altitude and carrying only a light day pack. Today, while doing my twice a week treadmill workout, I found that it took about a minute longer (2 1/2 instead of 1 1/2) to get my pulse up into the zone, and on the cool down, it dropped out of the zone about a minute earlier than usual. It also dropped down below 100 significantly earlier than usual during the cool down. In the previous session it never did get below 100 in the 40 minute workout.

My take on this is that even a short exercise period at higher altitude (I live at 4000 feet of elevation) seems to stimulate some sort of CV improvement - higher red blood cell count, perhaps? As I said, I have experienced this effect several times. It has helped both my treadmill and ergometer performances. I haven't experimented to see how long this boost can last. I would have thought that I would be tired from the high altitude hike on the next day, but it hasn't worked that way.

Bob S.