All I Know…
is that controlling my breathing properly was the last thing I learned for cycling. Wish I’da caught on earlier.
The basics:
Eat before you get hungry.
Drink before you get thirsty.
Take in that oxygen BEFORE you increase your effort. dumbass.
Workin’ on it
I recently watched an instructional canoeing video from Caleb Davis in which he recommended inhaling on the recovery and exhaling on the power stroke. I tried that and found that I needed to either slow my paddling cadence or increase my respiration rate. The whole thing makes sense to but so far it ain’t working.
Peter
Timing
I find it works best to breathe when above water surface and don’t breathe when below it!
Is that really necessary?
I’d always heard that the body reacts to changes in oxygen level in the blood almost instantly, (actually, carbon dioxide levels do more to influence breathing rate than oxygen levels when these gasses are within normal “working ranges”). It’s really not the same as hunger or thirst in that regard. On a similar note, the idea that football players can recover from strenuous exertion faster by breathing oxygen on the sidelines is a myth that has been debunked a bunch of times now, again, because the body controls the oxygen level within such precise limits, and so quickly, that an athlete breathing pure oxygen ends up breathing more slowly (the body does not want the oxygen level to be higher than normal, and things get out-of-wack in a hurry if that happens (that light-headed, faded-eyesight situation that happens when you are breathing too fast while blowing on a campfire to get it started is due to the blood-oxygen level getting just a little higher than it should be)).
Wow
Never given it this much analysis. It just seems to work itself out for me. The discussion reminds me of how to mess with your golf buddy’s head: when out on the course, ask him if he inhales or exhales during his stroke.
All I Know…
is that it works for me. If I start taking in the air well before the hill starts I do much better.
Entrained breathing
– Last Updated: Jul-06-12 11:03 PM EST –
Coordinating the locomotion of the limbs with breathing patterns during exercise is called "entrained breathing" or the "entrainment of respiration." It contrasts to random breathing during locomotive exercise.
Entrained breathing has been studied extensively. (See Google.) It has been shown to improve energy costs in certain sports and activities.
If your paddling is just diddling around duck ponds or floating along, then entrained breathing is probably not relevant to that sort of low effort locomotion.
However, I assume entrainment of respiration is relevant to paddlers as they approach higher levels of aerobic and anaerobic exertion. This would include not only flatwater, downriver and ocean racers, but also any paddler approaching his or her conditioning limit.
For example, I now cruise single blade correction stroke in an open canoe at a meager 2.5-2.7 mph under most conditions. It is a real exertion for me to reach 4 mph these days, which I can't sustain for very long. To do so, I must really concentrate on form and technique -- and entrained breathing seems to me to be a natural component of proper technique as I approach my conditioning limit.
I was experimenting today after I wrote the OP, and found myself preferring to inhale during the drive (or pull) phase of the stroke when kneeling.
I also Florida stroked over to a GMS assistant sculling coach and asked her whether she taught any particular breathing technique. She assured me that scullers "need to breathe" while rowing. In response, I told she had real potential as a pnet poster, and she smiled politely.
We had a more productive discussion about shaft flex and the Winters window, but I think I'll double check with the GMS head and national team coach, Guenter Beutter, on all this stuff.
Oh, polers
I assume canoe polers who do difficult upstream attainments entrain their breathing with their pole pushes. They may not be conscious of it because they have never focused on it. But I would be interested in future reports from polers as to whether they do entrain their breathing with their jab rhythms and whether they inhale or exhale on the push.
I Have This Vague Memory…
of reading an article about that in Bicycling Magazine years ago. The author recommended you switch off… sometimes exhale on the right foot’s downstroke, and sometimes the left foot. They claimed doing it the same all the time made one side of the body weaker than the other.
Pursed Lip Breathing
– Last Updated: Jul-07-12 10:30 AM EST –
I've been having some success with this:
http://www.ehow.com/facts_5271336_pursed-lip-breathing.html
More accurately... my version of it.
Please don't tell my competition.
I entrain my breathing with falling
backwards out of the canoe while hanging onto the pole. Breathe in while falling, exhale abruptly if water is cold.
Them is Some Sciency Words
but near as I can tell they said it worked. Right?
Barracuda & NorCal paddlers
are pro full-lung
You can always tell
when canoeswithduckhead hasn’t seen a thread yet
I think sometimes the boys in here forget they’re in mixed company
Andy_S… Here be a reemoodie fer yer
problem…
http://now.msn.com/money/0629-deodorized-fart-pads?OCID=MSNNow_OnNet_Money_10001
FE
My teck-nique
I usually hold my breath untill i find a suitable campsite-then breath a sigh of relief!
Turtle
More is better than Fewer…
As far as breaths is concerned, more is definitely better than fewer…but it also definitely depends on where you’re doing your paddling…LOL.
Testing full vs. empty lung theory
– Last Updated: Jul-08-12 7:55 PM EST –
In 1994 researchers at the Dartmouth Medical School tested the tectonic debate between full lung at the catch and empty lung at the catch, an entrained breathing debate that had sundered the rowing community for decades. Here is the research paper:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8007810
The test found no significant differences among three breathing patterns: inspire during drive, inspire during recovery, and spontaneous breathing.
This test has been criticized in later literature and on rowing boards for having been performed by complete novices using ergometers rather than by experienced rowers in actual shells under racing conditions. The researchers admit that the "benefits of locomotor-respiratory coupling might be specific for exercise mode or might require months to years of training." The researchers also appear not to have determined whether the subjects adopted unique entrained breathing patterns -- other than full or empty lung at the catch -- when told to breathe spontaneously.
A fuller analysis of the anatomy and physiology of breathing for rowers can be found here:
http://concept2.co.uk/training/breathing
Much of this technical discussion should be of instructive interest to aerobic paddlers, especially the discussion of inspiratory muscle fatigue (IMF).
Too busy
I do try to remember not to breathe when I’m upside down, but when upright I’m too busy to worry about breathing. I’m either focusing on my strokes or the next wave!