How much has altitude been scientifically been proven to make a difference in the mile / 1500?

I don't even understand the question.

Paging John Kellogg...

Jim Ryun was scientifically sent home devastated from Mexico City

Zero scientific evidence.

Anecdotally, it helped me in the mile.

I don't think you know how science works.

Would be interested in broad, scientific studies on this.

Anecdotes aren't science and different people have had different experiences. In general, many pros think it works - Flag, Park City, Switzerland.

Personally, a week at altitude camp was always a huge boost for me, at least in the short term.

Are you asking about altitude-training or the effects of altitude on performance?

If the former, we see the effects on Kenyans who live and train at altitude and if the latter you need look no further than Mexico '68.

Altitude is essentially never an isolated variable. Usually, higher altitude, when compared to lower options, is more hilly, has more natural surface to run on, has less air pollution, and a slower/more zen type of existence.

All of these things also help with running.

When I watch distance runners (mile and up) that live and train mostly at sea level I can't help but wonder how much faster they would be if they moved to altitude.

But you’re also training at a faster pace at sea level.

Other sports employ altitude training too. Here is one study on altitude training for a female Olympic short track speed skater in the 1000m, 1500m.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The Impact of Four High-Altitude Training Camps on the Aerobic Capacity of a Short Track PyeongChang 2018 Olympian: A Case Study

This study characterizes high-altitude training camps and their effect on the aerobic capacity of a Polish national team member (M.W.), who was a participant in the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games (body weight: 59.6 kg,...

Link:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8...

Conclusions
Based on the conducted research that consisted of high-altitude training in the form of four camps under conditions of hypobaric hypoxia, the following practical conclusions can be drawn:
1
The use of four altitude camps in two consecutive annual training cycles allowed the athlete to achieve high exercise adaptations and improve the aerobic potential.
2
Significant improvements in physiological parameters were found, some of them reaching the highest levels in the professional skater’s career so far: threshold of anaerobic changes AT-VO2 (mL/kg/min) of 51.3, and VO2max (mL/kg/min) of 61.0

In 1984 there were consistent complaints from NCAA coaches about sprinters going to NAU and Air Force, and running fast enough times to get into the NCAA Championship. Later esteemed researcher Dr. Bill Adams, himself a former top distance runner in the 1960's was retained by the NCAA to look at what effect altitude had. After several years of research the NCAA accepted and adopted Dr. Adams findings and the altitude conversions. In the 1990's Dr. Adams did more research on the effect of altitude on running and refined his original data. Not a doubt in my mind that the altitude conversions used are very close. If there was any criticism of Dr. Adams study is that it only used a few variables, when we could use many of them. In the 2005-2009 time period Dr. Ian Hunter at BYU another esteemed researcher looked at altitude/running and actualy thought more variables should be added and that some of the conversions may actually be smaller than what could be prescribed. There are hundreds of data points of what someone ran the mile/3000 at altitude, then what they ran coming down to sea-level and its very consistent with what the conversion was.

It is an older book, but I suggest reading Randy Wilber's book on altitude training and performance.

Maybe the next time the USOPC has its altitude conference you should attend and learn something.

Are asking if people born and raised at altitude (at least 4500ft.) have a performance advantage, 1500m & mile? Maybe.

Three areas of the world where citizens have the greatest genetic resistance to altitude sickness: Nepal, South American highlanders and Ethiopia. From those three areas of the world, Ethiopians seem to produce the best 1500m/milers but Ethiopia does not necessarily produce the best 1500m/milers. Shorter the distance, more important, 200m sprinting speed. Two-hundred meter sprinting speed is not correlated at all with higher elevation.

If you are asking is it a net plus, 1500m/one mile performance for sea level athletes to train at higher elevation for sea level 1500m races? That is not proven. Sea level citizens are going to suffer altitude sickness at a rate greater than zero. Sea level citizens, in aggregate are going to have more injuries due to training at altitude. Less oxygen means recovery is more difficult.

Wejo wants to discuss whether altitude training improves the ability of a 1500m/miler to run faster at sea level. It’s no mystery that it is beneficial for racing at altitude.

I believe it makes no difference at all for racing at sea level. I don’t think guys like Walker, Scott and the Brits, would have run any faster had they trained at altitude.

You can also think about if a couple months of altitude camp is enough to make people competitive. And altitude tents(low oxygen but high pressure) are another story.

there is decent evidence that altitude helps most people with red blood cell production. But how much does that add for a well trained (I.e the athlete putting in 10 hours of training) athlete? That’s a lot harder. There is limited evidence people get more efficient(the leading theory is your respiratory muscles use less energy) after a bout at altitude.

The one thing with something like altitude is some people are super responders. Maybe they were at the low end of red blood cells to start with or maybe they just produced more. There are also a ton of fast guys who never ran at altitude and it is hard to imagine huge improvements. Anyone think Nenow is running 26:50 with altitude? And small improvements like 5s win championships but are hard to prove.

For some historical perspective, in the early 1980s, Bert Nelson, the founder of Track & Field News, proposed a 990 feet altitude limit for world records. He and several others are quoted in this story by Chris Baker of the LA Times in 1983.

(Not sure if this link will work).

books.google.com

Lewiston Morning Tribune

Link:books.google.com/books?id=JoBfAAAAIBAJ...

I'm a big of fan of recommending "hi-lo" training, but I'm not aware of any "science" that looked at improvements using the mile/1500 as time trials. My favorite 1997 Stray-Gundersen used the 5000m and found about 3% faster performances for the amateurs in the study.

My gut feeling is that for the mile/1500m the benefit is not going to be more than about 1 second.

Oh, so now you believe in science?