Nasal Breathing 5K - thoughts?

[Recess]

I've just recorded and uploaded a video of me rowing 5000m only breathing through my nose.

https://youtu.be/OwQBBaihQ88

1) Lower your drag factor.
2) Row at a high rate (around 26)
3) If you need to breathe out your mouth - stop rowing. When you're ok - start rowing and nasal breathing again
4) Stop as many times as you need, but it may be helpful to reduce your intensity. I did this one at 2K+21 pace at 26spm.

The theory being that this builds CO2 tolerance, which then makes the oxygen / CO2 transfer more efficient. While also generating Nitric Oxide (which only happens through nasal breathing weirdly) which dilates your blood vessels, helping blood to circulate.

Intrigued whether anyone else has tried this, and has any thoughts. I was quite surprised at how easy it was.

John

[Holly62]

Not something that would even have shown up on my radar John.
I'll watch the video, I've used your row alongs before, and I'm subscribed, should be fun, I'll monitor everything.

[Recess]

If nothing else, it's a great way to make sure those low-intensity rows STAY low intensity.

It's really easy to fall into the black hole of thinking "This can't be helping" when rowing at 2K+18 / 20spm and then push it harder (I know, I've been there) and this nasal breathing thing means you just can't blow your system up and need to keep it low and easy (but still intense enough you get a workout of course) to keep breathing this way.

Let me know how you get on!

John

[max_ratcliffe]

Patrick Mckeown is the guru on this. I think it's an interesting hypothesis but I don't have the medical background to know whether it can have a genuine physiological benefit or whether it's snake oil.

I tried listening to one of his books but after a few chapters of "if you follow the techniques in this book..." without any great explanation of what those techniques actually are (beyond breathing through your nose!) I eventually gave up.

IIRC one of the really quick rowers on the forum (Freddie?) does it sometimes as part of his training.

[Tugger*#]

I've just recorded and uploaded a video of me rowing 5000m only breathing through my nose.

https://youtu.be/OwQBBaihQ88

1) Lower your drag factor.
2) Row at a high rate (around 26)
3) If you need to breathe out your mouth - stop rowing. When you're ok - start rowing and nasal breathing again
4) Stop as many times as you need, but it may be helpful to reduce your intensity. I did this one at 2K+21 pace at 26spm.

The theory being that this builds CO2 tolerance, which then makes the oxygen / CO2 transfer more efficient. While also generating Nitric Oxide (which only happens through nasal breathing weirdly) which dilates your blood vessels, helping blood to circulate.

Intrigued whether anyone else has tried this, and has any thoughts. I was quite surprised at how easy it was.

John

I try to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, depends how hard I am rowing. My auto go to is in & out through the mouth.

[shizzle]

There is a good book on this topic
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, by James Nestor.

I try to breathe through my nose as much as possible. During running and cycling (up to a certain intensity) it works quite well.
With rowing I have not really tried to focus on breath work, as I still have my attention on rowing technique. But I will give it a try.

Best regards shizzle

[shizzle]

I tried nasal breathing for most of 5k on the SkiErg. (Daughter woke up…)
Worked quite well at about 30spm.
Felt more relaxed.

Will incorporate this in future workouts aswell, so thanks for reminding me!

Best regards
shizzle

[Tony Cook]

Years of rugby means I have one blocked nostril and so often struggle to breath through my nose while sedentary, let alone rowing. Maybe half a dozen nose breathes then I have to do a big mouth breath lungful.