When you exercise with less oxygen in your muscles—like training at high altitude or with special gear—you might build more muscle than when you train normally, because your muscles get more 'starved' for oxygen, which could trigger bigger growth.
Context Details
Domain
exercise_science
Population
human
Subject
The intramuscular oxygen environment
Action
may be an important factor in
Target
exercise-induced muscular hypertrophy
Intervention Details
Gold Standard Evidence Needed
According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (1)
Effects of low-intensity resistance exercise with slow movement and tonic force generation on muscular function in young men.
The study found that doing slow, sustained muscle contractions with light weights made muscles more oxygen-deprived and also made them grow bigger, while doing the same light weights at normal speed didn’t. So yes, being low on oxygen in the muscle seems to help muscles grow.