Concept2 Forum

This link refers ro various tips on rowing technique.

Tip number 16 refers to breathing _ as does the first comment / feedback after the artcle.

different views are described for exhaling and inhaling at certain poibrs of the stroke.

which view is correct in your opinion?

http://breakingmuscle.com/rowing/the-17 ... -happiness


romper

I don't think there is a "correct" or "Incorrect" when it comes to breathing, you body does what comes naturally and trying to change it is very difficult.

I inhale on the drive and exhale on the recovery. Low rates I can get two breaths on the recovery or 2:1 but as I rate up it goes to 1:1. This is all well and good for training but if you go really hard it all goes to the weeds.

Thanks Carl.

Others - your thoughts/opinons?

1) Exhale as you drive back; inhale as you recover forward.

2) Inhale at the catch (the drive back); Exhale on the recovery (going forward)

?


ROmper

Romper wrote:Thanks Carl.

Others - your thoughts/opinons?

1) Exhale as you drive back; inhale as you recover forward.

2) Inhale at the catch (the drive back); Exhale on the recovery (going forward)

?


ROmper

I never have given it one thought. And still I get my breath......

At low rate (17-22) I find it easy to inhale on recovery and exhale on the drive. Not so above rate 23 at which point I begin to make a conscious diaphram-powered exhalation right at hands away fwd followed by a short inhale and then an exhalation and another breath wherever it falls in the drive. That's two breaths per stroke which falls apart and becomes a gasp in a final sprint and sometimes before. The explosive exhalation is about clearing the carbon monoxide. I can make my pulse rate drop a couple bpm doing this. Why have the COO go right back down with relatively more OO-laden air? Jack

Romper wrote: which view is correct in your opinion?

One after the other in sequence or you'll die.

Basically it doesn't matter, you don't get a choice about breathing it's autonomic and you'll find the way to breathe through your ergo stroke that works for you.

Citroen writes:

One after the other in sequence or you'll die.

ROTELMAO (huffpuff)

jackarabit wrote:The explosive exhalation is about clearing the carbon monoxide. I can make my pulse rate drop a couple bpm doing this. Why have the COO go right back down with relatively more OO-laden air? Jack

If you are exhaling carbon monoxide, please don't do it anywhere near me. I am allergic to carboxyhemoglobin:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboxyhemoglobin

The COO is OK, we all do that along with lots of other living critters. CO is a little harder to take. In fact, I would expect it to lower your pulse a lot more than a couple of bpm, like all the way to zero. I see that in the Wiki page there actually is some naturally produced by metabolism, but it must be extremely minuscule. It has a lot stronger affinity for hemoglobin than oxygen does.

Bob S., pedantic chemist.

My bad good catch Bob. Indeed my intent sans subscript was to suggest the deucey flavor of these molecules by the double-O. JackG, misteak-prone expurt

jackarabit wrote:My bad good catch Bob. Indeed my intent sans subscript was to suggest the deucy flavor of these molecules by the double-O. JackG, misteak-prone expurt

I knew that you were basically on the right track, but I just could not pass up a juicy opportunity like that. And yes, the inability to use subscripts in emails is frustrating indeed. I generally give up and stick the numbers inline with the letters, e.g. CH3CH2OH. (appropriate example with New Year's eve coming on)

Bob S.

I am definitely not part of the "brain-trust" in this forum...but as a low-rate UT2/UT1 rower for the most part, I find my breathing rhythm to settle in as follows:
lungs empty at the catch, filling naturally during the drive to the level of a half-breath. Exhale the half breath at the end of the drive. Take a full breath and exhale during the recovery...rinse and repeat.

I've never consciously thought about what I was doing with the exception of emptying my lungs to get a good reach at the catch.

T_M wrote: I've never consciously thought about what I was doing with the exception of emptying my lungs to get a good reach at the catch.

That makes good sense, since reaching forward with your arms tends to compress your chest. But at the end of your drive, your elbows are moving back and further expanding your chest, so the inhalation should last for the whole drive. The start of the recovery is an appropriate time for exhalation, since that is when the arms move forward again. On the recovery, the forward movement of the arms should be brief. It has always seemed to me that exhalations are shorter that inhalations, so that would work well to time them with the arms-away movement. For the rest of the recovery, there should be plenty of time for a complete breath as you say you are doing. A typical time for the drive is 0.7 seconds with little variation. At low or moderate rates, the recovery time is much longer than the drive time. Even at 30spm the recovery time (~1.3s) is almost double the drive time and the arm movement should take only a small part of that.

I don't think about all this stuff when I am on the erg seat. I just do what feels right and don't pay any attention to my breath sequencing. However, in races, it helped when I had a coxswain who occasionally reminded me to breathe! My reaction to that was to deliberately inhale as deeply as I could, but I don't remember at what part of the stroke I was doing it.

Bob S.

Pretty much, its impossible to inhale at the catch, your body is compressed so the compression helps you to fully exhale and also it makes sense to have inhaled by the end of the drive if you keep your arms up your chest and hence lungs are fully expanded.I don't think you can compare rowing to weightlifting where the breathing action is reversed.

I guess it matters if you are big and strong or small and weak. With big cheast muscles and big stomac it can be hard to inhale before the drive starts. As I'm big I don't know but a thin person with bird chest may not have problem to inhale deep at the end of recovery? I can only inhale 3/4 I think and it don't feels comfortable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjH3inybxSQ

I note this guy (closest to camera) exhales on Recovery and inhales on the Drive...

ROmper