BREATHING

Air from your surroundings is brought into the lungs during pulmonary ventilation. After being adequately warmed and moistened in the upper airways (nasal passages, trachea, and bronchi) it ultimately moves through the bronchioles and alveolar ducts to the alveoli where gas exchange occurs - oxygen diffusing across the alveolar lining into the blood and carbon dioxide out into the alveoli.

The diaphragm muscle makes an airtight separation between the abdominal and thoracic cavities. During inspiration it flattens, increasing the space (and negative pressure relative to the atmosphere) in the thoracic cavity while decreasing the volume of the abdominal cavity (unless the abdominal muscle relax to offset this effect). During exercise, the intercostal muscles and other thoracic wall muscles (the accessory muscles of respiration) contract to aid the expansion (and increase the negative pressure) in the thoracic cavity. During expiration the opposite occurs in the diaphragm and accessory respiratory muscles, the thoracic cavity decreases in size, and air flows out of the lungs.

With exercise conditioning, you will increase the amount of air that is regularly brought into the lungs each minute, and thus the amount of oxygen that can be extracted and delivered by the heart and vascular system to the exercising muscles. Along with the changes in the capillaries at the muscle cell level, this training effect allows you to ride longer and stronger without becoming anaerobic in your metabolism.

RESPIRATORY MUSCLE TRAINING

Would specific respiratory muscle training help the performance of trained, elite athletes?? Let's see what the literature has to say.

I think the following are fair comments based on these articles:

Inspiratory muscle fatigue does occur with prolonged high intensity exercise, and This fatigue can be delayed by specific inspiratory muscle training (IMT).
There is controversy as to whether a normal training regimen adequately prepares respiratory muscles to meet the demands of the activity for which the athlete is preparing. This includes meeting the oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange requirements of the endurance athlete's cardiovascular system (by providing adequate ambient air to the alveoli) as well as by decreasing lactic acid production from the respiratory muscles themselves.
The muscular capacity to provide pulmonary ventilation MAY limit optimum performance in highly trained athletes.
Preliminary research has demonstrated that inspiratory muscle training improves performance in highly trained rowers by 2% compared to a placebo group.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

First, practice deep breathing. With a normal breath we generally use only 10 to 15% of our lungs capacity. And during exercise, we tend to increase the rate, not the depth of our breathing. Although deep breathing is more work, and uses a bit more energy, the pay off can be that 1 - 2% edge in a competitive situation. Here are 4 changes you might consider:

Exhale more completely. After a more complete expiration, it is easier to take a deep breath. The usual rhythm is exhale to a count of 3 followed by inhaling to a count of 2.
Belly breathe. As you concentrate on deep breathing, you will push your diaphragm down and thus the abdominal contents out. If you are doing it correctly, your abs will expand more than your chest.
Widen your hand position. A 2 cm wider hand position will open up your chest and decrease the difficulty of drawing in a deep breath.
Synchronize your breathing. Try to synchronize your respiratory rhythm to that of your pedal cadence. Remember the 3:2 ratio of exhale to inhale.

A variation of pursed lip breathing focuses on the rhythm of respiration. Ian Jackson has developed a program, BreathPlay, which teaches skills in controlling ones expiration (and as a result, subsequent inspiration) of air. He notes that ", athletes discover that pushing air out is a much more efficient way of meeting oxygen demands than sucking air in. They also discover how the active outbreath can bring powerful precision to any movement. The BreathPlay paradigm advocates using the active outbreath to setup a spinal stretch which is then released with the passive inbreath." It taps into the power of both "focus" and "hypnotherapy" to achieve performance gains.

A reader comment suggests that a set 3:2 ratio in rhythmic breathing is not necessarily right for everyone: "This is what confuses me. I am not a "highly trained athlete" but when I exercised by riding my stationary bicycle I used to measure my heart beats using a heart rate monitor. I experimented with different rhythms of breathing and found out that at the same load and speed using 3/2 as stated above would force my heart to work harder (faster) than when using count of 3 for inhale and 2 for exhale (or 4 and 3 respectively) . The difference was not big - it was about 3% - but I could feel it immediately." - SC

My response was that rhythmic breathing is helpful for me personally - and suggested the focus in this area of training should be on developing a regular breathing rhythm that works for you rather than any specific inhale/exhale ratio.

PURSED LIP BREATHING

Does pursed lip breathing provide an advantage by creating a back pressure to keep the collapsing airways open? According to Frand Day MD (fday@powercranks.com) "Back pressure to keep the airways open on exhalation is really only necessary in seriously diseased lungs (such as seen in intensive care units). This is not normally necessary in athletes whose lungs are functioning normally (asthma attacks aside, where purse lips breathing is of little benefit). Moving air in and out of the lungs is a simple matter of physics. The volume of air moved depends upon the anatomy of the airways and the delta P (pressure) between the alveoli and the outside. On inhalation the expanding chest tends to open the airways, somewhat reducing the delta p necessary to move the required amount of air but exhalation tends to close the airways, requiring a higher delta p, but pursing the lips does nothing to change the required delta p if the lungs have normal amounts of elastic supportive tissue that normally keeps the airways open. As stated before, this increased back pressure is most useful is seriously diseased lungs and I am not aware of any data to show it useful in normal athletes."

DOES BREATHING THROUGH YOUR NOSE PROVIDE A PERFORMANCE BENEFIT?

There are good reasons to breathe through your nose (versus mouth breathing) as much as possible

filtering out pollutants and germs
warms and adds moisture to the air you breathe
may reduce asthma attacks in people who suffer from exercise-induced asthma.

but there is no evidence to support the contention of a performance benefit via delivery of nitric oxide to the exercising muscle.

The cells lining the paranasal sinuses do produce NO (thought to check the growth of bacteria and minimize the risks of sinusitis or infection of the sinus cavities). But the same is not true of the nasal lining cells.

The paranasal sinus cavities are not in the direct stream of air being delivered to the lungs through the nasal passages, and for that reason I doubt suspect any NO delivered to the blood stream is I doubt they provide a physiologically significant amount of NO to the exercising muscle. Nose (versus mouth) breathing is better for the health reasons listed above, so it is something to work on while exercising. But if you want the benefit of nitric oxide for your workout or ride, some beet juice in the AM may be more effective.

NASAL STRIPS

Why might nasal strips be expected to provide a performance benefit? Strips can reduce nasal valve resistance and increase nasal patency (i.e. you may feel your nostrils are more open). That mechanical effect is real in many studies. But multiple controlled trials and a systematic review/meta-analysis found no meaningful changes in cardiorespiratory measures such as VO2max, heart rate, RPE, or endurance time trial performance in healthy subjects. And in one cycling specific study, a randomized crossover study found neither external nor internal nasal dilation improved 20km time trial performance.

A few studies found small benefits in specific subgroups - for example adolescents or athletes who already have nasal obstruction symptoms (from a deviated septum for example) and another recent report suggests internal dilators may help endurance athletes with symptomatic nasal obstruction. But these are not generalizable to otherwise healthy athletes.

The short answer is there is no convincing, general performance benefit for cyclists or healthy athletes from external nasal dilator strips. But then there is the placebo effect. Many athletes report feeling better with a strip, and that subjective improvement can matter in competition.

Practical takeaways:

If you're asymptomatic and already breathing freely, you probably won't gain measurable power, speed, or aerobic capacity from an external strip.
If you habitually breathe through your nose (lower intensity) or you have a structural nasal problem (deviated septum, chronic congestion), a strip or an internal dilator may make breathing feel easier - trial it during training to see if subjective comfort or recovery between efforts improves.
In elite competition, if the athlete perceives small gains or comfort, then the placebo effect might give them that edge they are looking for. But for the rest of us mortals, they are not worth the money or hassle.

DECREASED LUNG CAPACITY WITH ENDURANCE EVENTS

A recent report indicated that lung function tests of endurance athletes during "ultra" marathon sports events has indicated a progressive decrease in lung volume and expiration rates of between 5% and 20% ,commonly indicative of asthma related disease. These results were noted in various sports events including canoeing, running, skiing and cycling. It was postulated that these athletes exhibited symptoms of exercise induced asthma. Does exercise cause spasm in the lung airways in all athletes, not just asthmatics??

There is some evidence that endurance athletes may become sensitized to allergens (proteins that can bring on an asthma attack) and other environmental toxins the longer they are involved in their sport. This may be why such a high percentage of elite athletes are on medications for "exercise induced asthma".

But with exercise induced asthma (which is the same as any other asthma), vital capacity diminishes with even a few minutes of beginning easy exercise. In ultra endurance athletes, there is most likely another factor (something that would occur in everyone such as fatigue or dehydration) causing lower lung volumes and muscular efficiency that slowly evolves as exercise continues. This still to be identified factor,not asthma, reduces vital capacity if the event was long enough and becomes the most logical reason why such a high percentage would show reduced lung capacity.

All questions and suggestions are appreciated and will be answered.

Cycling Performance Tips
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