Brucey wrote: ... For the low-oxygen training to have been any real use, he would have to have done it for weeks not days. ...
Without commenting on this exchange, its subject does illustrate a point I've been trying to make which is that modern training methods, helped by things like Lottery Funding are so much more scientific.
A former colleague was a pretty good distance runner and he told me a tale about an Iron Curtain athlete from the days when they were all "amateurs" holding senior rank in the Soviet armed forces. I think he may have been talking about Emile Zatopek. This also concerned training with a restricted oxygen supply, presumably to mimic the effects of training at altitude. Anyway, the story was that he used to hold his breath while training, but part of that training involved marching out of the barracks in the full uniform of a Red Army colonel or whatever and seeing how far he could march before he fainted.
This probably also comes under "learning how to suffer."