Altitude training in Andorra

With its surface area of 468 km², Andorra has everything you need to make your pre-season training a unique experience. Its standard of living, with excellent safety indexes, great weather for relentless training in spring and summer, its beautiful surroundings and the ease of disconnecting in the heart of nature make Andorra an extraordinary place. It has an average altitude of 1,996 m and 90% of its land is forest. Given its small size, you can explore the whole country leisurely and comfortably.

High-altitude sports tourism offers you numerous benefits and there’s no doubt that Andorra’s the ideal place to improve your performance.

Its unique environment pushes you to perform at your best during your pre-season preparation, as it lets you train at altitude in a climate that’s perfect for a variety of elite sports.

Andorra’s just the place for your pre-season training. Here, you’ll find sports facilities tailored to professional athletes, fully equipped sports accommodation and great sports tourism options. But that’s not all. Andorra provides you with everything you need to successfully train at altitude.
 

Andorra is a mountainous country. Here, you’ll find valleys, sharp, steep peaks and 65 two-thousanders, with Comapedrosa as the tallest, at an altitude of 2,942 m, while the lowest is in Sant Julià de Lòria, at 900 m. The difference in altitude between the lowest valley and the highest peak allows you to take the living high-training low approach, so you can train at moderate altitude and experience high altitudes of between 1,000 m and 2,000 m. This way, you reap the benefits in red blood cell production, while avoiding the difficulty of training at an excessively high altitude.

Training at altitude offers you amazing benefits during your pre-season physical preparation. With this type of training, you increase your body’s endurance by getting it used to an environment where there’s not much oxygen. Here are some of its benefits:

• Your body produces more red blood cells and also increases your endurance when you return to sea level.
• You incorporate new stimuli of different types.
• You make the most of your time: when you’re at a high altitude, your body trains even at rest.
• It improves muscle capillarisation and, consequently, muscle performance.
• It improves muscle enzyme activity and buffer capacity, which provides great benefits for anaerobic work.
• It increases the stimulation of the respiratory muscles: it has been shown that, at altitude, maximum respiratory values are higher than those recorded at sea level.
• You train at higher intensity for shorter periods of time.
• You take advantage of favourable environmental conditions: the air is cleaner and less dense in mountainous areas.
• The psychological and living environment is more favourable: the surroundings allow you to soak up the peace and quiet, admire its beauty and make it easier for you to concentrate. This is great not only for training, but also for building team spirit and good relationships between athletes and coaches.