If your preferred form of cardiovascular exercise has grown far too easy for your impossibly fit self, perhaps you've considered supplementing your workout regimen with an elevation training mask. Altitude training is a proven method of increasing athletes' supply of oxygen-transporting red blood cells, but for those unwilling to uproot to the Himalayas for a marginally tougher morning run, ETMs present a tantalizing potential solution. You've probably seen someone wearing an ETM while lifting weights, jogging, or (if they're a weirdo) playing pickup hoops, casually strapping across their face a hideous contraption that vaguely resembles what Bane wore in The Dark Knight Rises. At least in theory, the masks simulate the effects of altitude training by restricting air intake, limiting the oxygen available to the wearer, and helping them train harder.

There's just one tiny problem, though: According to two studies recently published in the International Journal of Exercise Science, these contraptions might not actually work. The first study examined the effects of wearing an ETM during high-intensity interval training, as measured by changes in participants' maximal oxygen uptake, or "VO2 max." The researchers found that although those wearing a workout mask experienced marginally greater VO2 max increases than the control group, those differences were not statistically significant. However, all subjects—mask or no mask—who participated in the high-intensity interval training regimen saw increases in their fitness, so if you've got some spare stairs to climb, this is just one more reason to start.

The second study, which pointedly notes that "the research on the effects of implementing this piece of equipment during training seems to be limited to the company’s website," also examined the impact of ETMs on VO2 max, this time slowly increasing the "altitude" throughout the study period in order to simulate gradual acclimation to higher elevations. Again, researchers found no significant differences in increased VO2 max.

The authors were careful to note that participants wore the elevation training mask only during exercise—that is, for only three hours a week during the seven-week study period—and they posited that wearing the masks for longer periods of time might yield more significant results. This makes some intuitive sense—it doesn't seem likely that occasionally teleporting in and out of Aspen for a quick jog would carry the same health benefits as training there all the time. But the biggest drawback of ETMs is that every minute you wear them is another minute you spend looking like the villain in a bad Friday the 13th knockoff. I don't know that suffering the indignity of wearing this monstrosity in public is worth the potential health benefits.

Watch Now: How to Do the Perfect Push-UpJay Willis is a staff writer at GQ covering news, law, and politics. Previously, he was an associate at law firms in Washington, D.C. and Seattle, where his practice focused on consumer financial services and environmental cleanup litigation. He studied social welfare at Berkeley and graduated from Harvard Law School... Read more