Could rowers benefit from Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training ?

[frankencrank]

doesn't fit in your dogmatic concept of oxygen transport.

LOL

The same facile treatment of evidence again. Peltonen, the author you referred to, measured the effect of the oxygen concentration in air on rowing performance in 1995:
In a 2500m all-out test the mean final rowing time was 2.3% shorter in air with 60% oxygen and 5.3% longer in air with 16% oxygen, compared to normal air (21% oxygen). The effects on VO2max were even bigger (11% higher in 60% oxygen ; 15% smaller in 16% oxygen).
You call this "tiny effects"!
Why is it that a decrease from 21% oxygen (standard air) to 16% affects the rowing performance so strongly, if according to you there is an abundance of oxygen in the lungs?

Let's look at this seriously. A tripling of the available oxygen in the lungs resulted in a tiny improvement in performance. whereas a 20% diminution of available oxygen resulted in a bigger but not huge drop in performance. How to explain this. Might I suggest you review oxygen carrying capacity of the blood and the oxyhemoglobin dissociation curve. When one increases the inspired O2 the only improvement one can count on is dissolved oxygen improving. https://www.medmastery.com/guide/blood- ... rial-blood 16% oxygen is just getting to the start of the drop of the curve (like living in Flagstaff)
https://hypoxico.com/altitude-to-oxygen-chart/

[frankencrank]

blah, blah, blah.

Let me get this straight. You are running a little self experiment looking at inspiratory muscle strength training and finding no improvement (so far) and you are correcting me when I try to come here and tell you why you are not seeing any improvement? Is that correct?

[Tsnor]

Interesting and sort of on topic. If you listen to the audio this section is 46 mins in.

https://www.fasttalklabs.com/training/c ... en-seiler/


(Sorry for the transcription errors, site says AI generated, and that is obvious. Transcript is 2 people talking, so some of the disjoint is the 2nd person interjecting. Good site, www.fasttalklabs.com, free, good info, good podcasts)

Interestingly, in terms of being overbuilt, there are only two animals on the planet that have overbuilt lungs. And that’s humans and pronghorns. I did not know that. pronghorn antelope while there you go. And yeah, and we do have a bit of an overdevelopment in the sense that if you the way we can, the reason we say that’s true is as you know, we can do a maximum ventilation test and have just people who voluntarily breathe as fast and hard as they can for

46:35

X number of seconds and you can calculate their maximum ventilation volume. And then you can have them do a vo two max test on a treadmill. And you measure their ventilation during that test. And what we see is that with untrained people, there’s a big gap, you know, they might have 150 liters a minute, maximum voluntary ventilation, and they only come up to 120 during the test. So they’ve got a reserve of ventilatory reserve capacity, meaning it’s is overbill relative to their heart, but then you take the elite athlete and you you find out that that gap has been significantly reduced. Yeah, in fact, you can, you can start to see some the set so called the saturation, where the lungs are starting to reach the point where they’re not able to fully oxygenate the blood going through the lungs because this athlete has got a 40 liter per minute cardiac output and he’s moving, he’s moving or it’s usually guys because they got the biggest hearts relative to body size. They’re moving more blood through the lungs and the lungs can fully saturate with oxygen.

[Tsnor]

Here is some data to suggest that breathing exercises should have no benefit to rowing performance. A study showing that increasing inspired oxygen concentration from normal (20%) to supernormal (60%) had a tiny affect on performance (yes there would be a tiny increase in oxygen delivery because of increase oxygen in solution accounting for the difference.
https://www.academia.edu/25612405/Effec ... view-paper

...
In a 2500m all-out test the mean final rowing time was 2.3% shorter in air with 60% oxygen and 5.3% longer in air with 16% oxygen, compared to normal air (21% oxygen). The effects on VO2max were even bigger (11% higher in 60% oxygen ; 15% smaller in 16% oxygen). ...

Elite rowers use high altitude training to get these benefits. AFAIK everyone elite across endurance sports does. The benefits of high altitude training are not trivial at all. (Not clear you can get the same adaptations using "Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training" but to discount the benefit makes no sense, and concluding that rowing does not benefit from high altitude training therefore "Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training" does not work is arguing from an invalid premise.)

[frankencrank]

Elite rowers use high altitude training to get these benefits. AFAIK everyone elite across endurance sports does. The benefits of high altitude training are not trivial at all. (Not clear you can get the same adaptations using "Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training" but to discount the benefit makes no sense, and concluding that rowing does not benefit from high altitude training therefore "Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training" does not work is arguing from an invalid premise.)

altitude training is a form of legal blood doping. Prolonged reduced oxygen increases hemoglobin concentration and the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood (blood doping does it without the need to live at altitude). When the athlete returns to sea level performance is enhanced because more oxygen gets delivered to the mitochondria. More CO2 is produced as a result but the breathing adapts to this without any problem without any special exercises. Breathing more does not change the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood. Let me repeat, in normal people exercise is never limited by the breathing muscles or the lungs ability to uptake oxygen.

[max_ratcliffe]

Elite rowers use high altitude training to get these benefits. AFAIK everyone elite across endurance sports does. The benefits of high altitude training are not trivial at all. (Not clear you can get the same adaptations using "Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training" but to discount the benefit makes no sense, and concluding that rowing does not benefit from high altitude training therefore "Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training" does not work is arguing from an invalid premise.)

altitude training is a form of legal blood doping. Prolonged reduced oxygen increases hemoglobin concentration and the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood (blood doping does it without the need to live at altitude). When the athlete returns to sea level performance is enhanced because more oxygen gets delivered to the mitochondria. More CO2 is produced as a result but the breathing adapts to this without any problem without any special exercises. Breathing more does not change the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood. Let me repeat, in normal people exercise is never limited by the breathing muscles or the lungs ability to uptake oxygen.

If there any factual basis to what Patrick Mckeown is talking about with his nasal breathing to reduce "over- breathing"? This is apparently based on the Bohr effect (which is a real thing). I was quite keen on what he was proposing based on his YouTube videos, but trying to listen to his book was an unedifying experience and moreover,
the preface was by a Joseph Mercola, who appears to be a complete pseudoscientist and all round g*bshite.

He also claims that some breath- holding exercises can simulate altitude training and result in very quick increases in red blood cell count

[frankencrank]

If there any factual basis to what Patrick Mckeown is talking about with his nasal breathing to reduce "over- breathing"? This is apparently based on the Bohr effect (which is a real thing). I was quite keen on what he was proposing based on his YouTube videos, but trying to listen to his book was an unedifying experience and moreover,
the preface was by a Joseph Mercola, who appears to be a complete pseudoscientist and all round g*bshite.

He also claims that some breath- holding exercises can simulate altitude training and result in very quick increases in red blood cell count

There is simply no physiological basis to think that this training should benefit aerobic performance. Here is another interesting physiological fact that goes against this training being effective. When we breathe in this causes a negative pressure in the thorax (which is why the air rushes in). This negative pressure actually increases the diameter of the trachea and bronchi, making it easier for air to move. Breathing out increases thoracic pressure and reduces the diameter of these tubes. The restriction to breathing is generally considered to be during expiration, when turbulent flow occurs, not inspiration. training the inspiratory muscles should have zero affect on performance in normal people. (if you have some medical conditions that could change). If you are in the hospital and on a breathing machine the opposite condition occurs.

Another problem is the need is at the end of the race. 6 minutes at 50 breaths a minute is 300 breaths later. 30 breaths of training is hardly going to affect that.

This guy is taking a few unrelated facts and making it seem like there should be a benefit. I would be totally amazed if it had any affect at all, let alone a large affect. If it did I would have to reconsider what I learned in my physiological training (I was taught that 50% of what they were teaching us in medical school was wrong, they just didn't know which 50%. I would be amazed if this was in the wrong half.)

[max_ratcliffe]

.

(I was taught that 50% of what they were teaching us in medical school was wrong, they just didn't know which 50%. I would be amazed if this was in the wrong half.)

Ha. I rather like that. All models are wrong, but some are useful.

Mckeown's conjecture is not related to the Inspiratory muscles (so slightly off topic, but still very much related to breathing). He claims that because co2 has a vasodilatory effect iaw the Bohr effect then athletic performance can be enhanced by training the body to be more tolerant to slightly higher levels of co2. Overbreathing will reduce the levels of co2 to levels that inhibit the vasodilation and so we're better off breathing less.

It sounds quite convincing but I don't have the background to assess it critically.

Similarly he claims that training while breath holding can simulate altitude training. One of his YouTube videos shows someone on an exercise bike driving arterial o2 down to sub 80% IIRC through breath holding. Again, it seems like a reasonable idea, but could just be snake oil.

[frankencrank]

.

(I was taught that 50% of what they were teaching us in medical school was wrong, they just didn't know which 50%. I would be amazed if this was in the wrong half.)

Ha. I rather like that. All models are wrong, but some are useful.

Mckeown's conjecture is not related to the Inspiratory muscles (so slightly off topic, but still very much related to breathing). He claims that because co2 has a vasodilatory effect iaw the Bohr effect then athletic performance can be enhanced by training the body to be more tolerant to slightly higher levels of co2. Overbreathing will reduce the levels of co2 to levels that inhibit the vasodilation and so we're better off breathing less.

It sounds quite convincing but I don't have the background to assess it critically.

Similarly he claims that training while breath holding can simulate altitude training. One of his YouTube videos shows someone on an exercise bike driving arterial o2 down to sub 80% IIRC through breath holding. Again, it seems like a reasonable idea, but could just be snake oil.

Snake oil it is IMHO. The bodies enzymes work best at a particular pH (although different enzymes may have different optimum pH's). by and large, the body does a pretty good job of optimizing the environment for optimum performance. One cannot train those enzymes to work better at a different pH, it is simple chemistry. Some might work better but others not.

Further, it takes prolonged periods at altitude to stimulate hemoglobin production and adaption to occur. Brief periods of hypoxemia will have no effect.

Deep breathing could improve things by decreasing atelectasis and improving V/Q but that doesn't require specific muscle training.

If breathing more could affect performance one would expect supplemental oxygen to affect performance. It does not to any significant degree.

I just don't see any hope.

[ukaserex]

So...call me ignorant if you must - but what is "Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training"? I peeked at the article, but when I saw "30 breaths", I immediately stopped looking, as I've no idea how one would go about Strength Training one's breathing. In other words, I need a vocabulary lesson to come close to commenting intelligently on this specific article.

What I can say is that not all studies are created equally. When it comes to blood pressure, there are so very many factors that go into such a reading, that it would be difficult to control for all of them. Hydration, sleep duration & quality, diet, size of cuff, etc. Anecdotally, my own blood pressure can vary by 30 points, depending on what I was doing prior to the reading. If I walked to the doc's office, it's elevated. (literally a 6 minute walk from my house) If I drove, it's closer to normal. In the afternoons, it's higher than it is in the mornings. There's so much variation in my own BP, I stopped giving a crap what it was. I figure as long as I row every day, my heart will be just fine.

[frankencrank]

There's so much variation in my own BP, I stopped giving a crap what it was. I figure as long as I row every day, my heart will be just fine.

Maybe, maybe not. The problem with blood pressure is lower is generally better (as long as it is high enough to keep you standing upright) because higher works the heart harder. High pressure steam systems have a lot more problems than low pressure steam systems. Brief periods of high blood pressure are not a problem but prolonged blood pressure leads to problems later on. A good time to take your blood pressure is while you are quiet just before going to sleep or in the morning before getting up and going. This would be a good indicator of what your bp is during the third of the day you are asleep. Another thing to be aware of is the HR as if you are rowing regularly your HR when resting, just before sleep should be low, depending upon your aerobic fitness. When I was in my best shape my resting HR was about 35. it now, according to my watch, drops to the mid 40's during sleep. If it is higher than expected this could indicate a hormone issue like thyroid problem. This could be another reason for a BP all over the place.

Anyhow, please don't ignore a bp that is all over the place. Try to figure out if it really is all over the place or what it is when you are resting. Discuss your findings with your doctor. An exercise stress test (where they will measure your BP while exercising) may be indicated.

[max_ratcliffe]

<>
Snake oil it is IMHO. The bodies enzymes work best at a particular pH (although different enzymes may have different optimum pH's). by and large, the body does a pretty good job of optimizing the environment for optimum performance. One cannot train those enzymes to work better at a different pH, it is simple chemistry. Some might work better but others not.

Further, it takes prolonged periods at altitude to stimulate hemoglobin production and adaption to occur. Brief periods of hypoxemia will have no effect.

<>

Yeah, thanks. If something seems too good to be true, and all that.

I can't find any serious papers on line about it, although there seems to be a number of devotees, who've all given his book 5 stars on Amazon. He'll be claiming it cures covid next.

[Nomath]

So...call me ignorant if you must - but what is "Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training"? I peeked at the article, but when I saw "30 breaths", I immediately stopped looking, as I've no idea how one would go about Strength Training one's breathing. In other words, I need a vocabulary lesson to come close to commenting intelligently on this specific article....

Serious Inspiratory Muscle Training involves a lot more than just '30 breaths'. It is 30 breaths twice daily against a resistance that is about 75% of your maximum inspiratory pressure. To put this into perspective: the maximum inspiratory pressure (MIP) of a healthy adult ranges between -60 to -100 mmHg (equivalent -80 to -140 cmH2O). Compare this to
- inspiratory pressure during normal breathing : - 2.5 mmHg
- inspiratory pressure during deep breathing or Yoga : -5 mmHg
- inspiratory pressure during high-intensity aerobic exercise at 95% of maximal oxygen uptake : -22 mmHg.
Clearly, the 30 breaths twice daily involve an effort that is far beyond what we normally breathe during a rowing session. If you do IMT properly, your breathing muscles will be exhausted after 30 breaths !

What are the results?
There is no question that IMT improves your personal maximal inspiratory pressure significantly in 6 weeks! I took the above figures from a study Daily inspiratory muscle training lowers blood pressure and vascular resistance in healthy men and women, which is freely available on the internet. The subjects of this study were students at the University of Arizona: average age 20 yrs ; normal heigth, weight and body mass index ; about half men/women.
They were randomly assigned to train either at 75% (of MIP) resistance (IMT group) or at 15% resistance (sham group).
The figure below shows the results of the weekly measured maximum inspiratory pressure :



I have rarely seen such a clear differentiation between the two groups. So there is no question that even young healthy adults can strengthen their breathing muscles dramatically by 5 min training/day. The study als measured the effect on blood pressure. Yes, blood pressure readings are notoriously variable. So the supervisors of the study took care that the subjects sat quietly, well-rested, taking 3 measurements on alternate arms, etc. This is the result :



The drops in systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) are not as spectacular as the MIP results, but they are significant! Again: this is the result for healthy young adults.

Interestingly, the investigators also measured the systemic vascular resistance. This is a property related to blood flow in the arteries, not to breathing. Hold your breath, frankencrank, because this property changed significantly from Inspiratory Muscle Training !



This last results probably inspired the investigators from the University of Colorado in Boulder to the study that inspired me to open this topic (see page 1, top post) to look deeper in the cardiovascular effects from IMT. And they also found significant blood flow effects : brachial artery flow improved by 45% in the IMT-group , but was unchanged for the sham-group (both groups were recruited from aged people suffering from hypertension).

Let's be clear. I started my personal IMT because of hypertension. I am now roughly in week 4, because I took a 2-week vacation without PowerBreathe (and C2). It will take me another 2 weeks before I will present my results. But a 1-man study is of very limited value, whether the results are positive or negative. That's why scientists are told to study large groups, include a reference (sham-) group, do measurements in controlled environment, possibly blind the person who does the measurements to who was in the IMT-group and who was in the sham-group, etc. So the result of my 1-man study is relevant for myself only ; I would recommend others to follow the science!

In the mean time I have read more about the value of IMT for rowers, which was of course a matter of debate. I like to stress again that breathing for rowers is strongly constrained, because it is highly linked to the stroke rate. In many activities, such as ergometer cycling and treadmill running, as the intensity increases, the tidal volume of each breath and the frequency go up. You can get as high as 70 breaths/min.



Such high frequencies are nearly impossible with rowing, where most people do one breath/stroke . So tidal volume gets more important as intensity increases. It seems that you cannot increase the volume of your lungs by training, but you can increase the forced expiratory volume in 1 sec (FEV1) by training of the inspiratory muscles. This is shown in a nice study titled Inspiratory Muscle Training increases Tidal Volume during Incremental Exercise with Reduced Breathing - A Pilot Study .

[frankencrank]

I have rarely seen such a clear differentiation between the two groups. So there is no question that even young healthy adults can strengthen their breathing muscles dramatically by 5 min training/day. The study als measured the effect on blood pressure. Yes, blood pressure readings are notoriously variable. So the supervisors of the study took care that the subjects sat quietly, well-rested, taking 3 measurements on alternate arms, etc. This is the result :



The drops in systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) are not as spectacular as the MIP results, but they are significant! Again: this is the result for healthy young adults.

Interestingly, the investigators also measured the systemic vascular resistance. This is a property related to blood flow in the arteries, not to breathing. Hold your breath, frankencrank, because this property changed significantly from Inspiratory Muscle Training !



This last results probably inspired the investigators from the University of Colorado in Boulder to the study that inspired me to open this topic (see page 1, top post) to look deeper in the cardiovascular effects from IMT. And they also found significant blood flow effects : brachial artery flow improved by 45% in the IMT-group , but was unchanged for the sham-group (both groups were recruited from aged people suffering from hypertension).

Let's be clear. I started my personal IMT because of hypertension. I am now roughly in week 4, because I took a 2-week vacation without PowerBreathe (and C2). It will take me another 2 weeks before I will present my results. But a 1-man study is of very limited value, whether the results are positive or negative. That's why scientists are told to study large groups, include a reference (sham-) group, do measurements in controlled environment, possibly blind the person who does the measurements to who was in the IMT-group and who was in the sham-group, etc. So the result of my 1-man study is relevant for myself only ; I would recommend others to follow the science!

There is no doubt that inspiratory muscle training can change physiological characteristics. The problem has to do with what those characteristics have to do with exercise performance?

Let's discuss systemic vascular resistance which you seem to find particularly important. SVR is nothing more than mean arterial pressure divided by the blood flow. https://www.cvphysiology.com/Blood%20Pressure/BP021 They found systolic and diastolic blood pressure to drop (mean arterial pressure is normally about 2/3 between these two values). So MAP drops while blood flow remains constant (I assume these measurements were done at rest). This finding has nothing to do with exercise performance.

In the mean time I have read more about the value of IMT for rowers, which was of course a matter of debate. I like to stress again that breathing for rowers is strongly constrained, because it is highly linked to the stroke rate. In many activities, such as ergometer cycling and treadmill running, as the intensity increases, the tidal volume of each breath and the frequency go up. You can get as high as 70 breaths/min.



Such high frequencies are nearly impossible with rowing, where most people do one breath/stroke .

I don't know where that supposition comes from. It would be impossible to develop the minute volumes necessary to sustain high levels of aerobic exercise with a respiratory rate tied to stroke rate. In this study only in elite rowers was respiratory rate tied to stroke rate but not 1:1 but 1.5:1. Some constraint. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2017014/

So tidal volume gets more important as intensity increases. It seems that you cannot increase the volume of your lungs by training, but you can increase the forced expiratory volume in 1 sec (FEV1) by training of the inspiratory muscles. This is shown in a nice study titled Inspiratory Muscle Training increases Tidal Volume during Incremental Exercise with Reduced Breathing - A Pilot Study .

Again, unless it is shown that such changes increase oxygen delivery to the muscles then there can be no performance benefit.

[Nomath]

"Are the lungs built for rowing? " is the title of an Editorial in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, in 2003. It was written by Niels H. Secher, who according to his Wikipedia profile was not only an elite rower, but also an expert in physiology, blood flow and oxygenation.

If such a scientist writes " Could it be that oarsmen cannot increase their alveolar O2 tension to the same extent as the often smaller runners and cyclists? " as the closing sentence of this Editorial, it is clear for me that the dogmatic view of frankencrank, that "in normal people exercise is never limited by the breathing muscles or the lungs ability to uptake oxygen", is far from certain among experts.