Breathing And Spm

[old] H_2O · Post by **[old] H_2O** » April 29th, 2005, 4:49 am

Folks, I have read several posts on the importance of spm capped rowing and the SPI index. The idea to cap the spm seems to be to enforce a unform power per stroke at each speed. I understand the benefits of this but have the following problem: if I stroke very slowly (20 spm) I can't breathe often enough (since the breathing is synchronized with the stroke) and don't get enough oxygen. So if I try to maintain SPI == 12 at 20 spm (240 watts) I soon become very uncomfortable and the stroke rate drifts up to 25 (300 watts) and that's too much for long endurance rows. How do you cope with this? Is SPI == 12 too much? It is based on a goal of 6:20 knowing that I probably can't rate higher than 34 spm.

[old] holm188 · Post by **[old] holm188** » April 29th, 2005, 5:22 am

Hi, The natural way of breathing would be: in during recovery, out during drive. Now for rowing there are 2 problems, one is at low SR this might not be enough breathing, two rower are "compressed" at the catch so it is not possible to have full lungs at that time. What I do is to have one breath "cycle" during recovery and one during the drive. For workouts at low SR the is enough for me and actually works quite well at SR 18 to 22. When going up with the SR and I need more air well I'm probably adding in a breath or 2 more during a stroke. Hope that helps, Holm

[old] MarcusLL · Post by **[old] MarcusLL** » April 29th, 2005, 8:00 am

Aha! I'm glad someone else gets this - I find exactly the same - a limit effort 30 minutes at 20spm gives me a kind of 'drowning' sick feeling of never quite being able to get enough air, completely different from the normal ragged breathing that accompanies a 10m/stroke or free rated pb. I'm almost thinking of stopping doing this session as I don't feel I'm really able to push as hard as I can on only 40 breaths per minute.

[old] Mel Harbour · Post by **[old] Mel Harbour** » April 29th, 2005, 8:28 am

'Only' 40 breaths per minute?! That's actually a very high number of breaths indeed. A competitor in a sport with unrestricted breathing will typically breathe somewhere on the order of 15-18 breaths per minute! Mel

[old] Cran · Post by **[old] Cran** » April 29th, 2005, 9:20 am

Try doing a full breath out at the finish and a 1/2 breath out at the catch. Don't worry about trying to breathing in, all you need to do is breath out and the in part takes care of itself.

[old] MarcusLL · Post by **[old] MarcusLL** » April 29th, 2005, 11:48 am

15 - 18 breaths per minute!!! Yikes - a 10k pb free-rating for me would probably be at about 26 spm, and certainly the second half would have me breathing about two and a half times a stroke - so about 65 breaths per minute! I think I must have something wrong with my lungs . . . Cran - cheers for advice - will give it a go.

[old] H_2O · Post by **[old] H_2O** » April 29th, 2005, 7:39 pm

My conclusion is that I won't slavishly stick with a constant SPI. To aim for an SPI of 12 for a 2K race not every stroke in training has to be at SPI == 12. However a substantial amount of stroking at 12 SPI will be necessary. I'll do these at 300 Watts with 25 spm and shoot for 15 minute sessions. It should be possible after awhile.

[old] Mel Harbour · Post by **[old] Mel Harbour** » April 30th, 2005, 4:55 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(MarcusLL @ Apr 29 2005, 10:48 AM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>15 - 18 breaths per minute!!! Yikes - a 10k pb free-rating for me would probably be at about 26 spm, and certainly the second half would have me breathing about two and a half times a stroke - so about 65 breaths per minute! I think I must have something wrong with my lungs . . . Cran - cheers for advice - will give it a go. </td></tr></table> That's entirely the point though - rowing restricts the breathing and forces you into breathing patterns which are too fast basically. Hence you need a large maximal flow of air into and out of the lungs to suit the massive gasps for breath that occur. Turns out that generally the best lungs to have for this are as large as possible. And what do we find - rowers have long torsos! Mel

[old] Carl Henrik · Post by **[old] Carl Henrik** » April 30th, 2005, 8:47 am

A rower at my club has a PB of 6:09 on the erg and his maximal ventilation is only 170 L/min. As a reference, I can only pull 6:35-6:40 but breath (hyperventilate) 230 L /min. Breathing is usually not a limitation to the amount of oxyen being delivered. I have large lungs and sometimes it feels like I don't have to breath at all even though I have difficulties keeping pace. For almost all the limitation is blood delivery and oxygen diffusion at the site of consumption. Perhaps the only way breathing will slow you down is if you work at it too much? One way to get off the "I must train at race SPI", but still have a good thought behind the chosen stroke power is to think in terms of stroke impulse instead of energy. Since the boat or flywheel is slower at higher paces [edited from lower, how often do I use the wrong word?], the time for the drive will increase. Now the impulse is Force x Time, so you can lower the Force slightly and still let the muscles adapt to racing impulses. If you are doing LSDs for example: paceLSD = 120s, pace2k=95s. 2kSPI = 12. to get the same impulses: SPILSD = 12*95/120 = 9.5 There I've given you some mathematical mumbo jumbo to excuse yourself for slacking off However, I do believe if you look at it chemically in the muscles, the equal impulse idea won't be completely irrelevant. I would be very interested in hearing someone who would know more about this. Also, sometimes the body has right in what it feels, and if you are doing a LSD it may be as a recovery row and those should not be very stressful on the body.

[old] H_2O · Post by **[old] H_2O** » April 30th, 2005, 10:55 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(Carl Henrik @ Apr 30 2005, 07:47 AM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'> There I've given you some mathematical mumbo jumbo to excuse yourself for slacking off However, I do believe if you look at it chemically in the muscles, the equal impulse idea won't be completely irrelevant. I would be very interested in hearing someone who would know more about this. Also, sometimes the body has right in what it feels, and if you are doing a LSD it may be as a recovery row and those should not be very stressful on the body. </td></tr></table> Thanks, I like the idea of slacking off. I believe in it already.

[old] cynthia · Post by **[old] cynthia** » April 30th, 2005, 10:01 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE(H_2O @ Apr 29 2005, 03:49 AM)</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Folks, I have read several posts on the importance of spm capped rowing and the SPI index. The idea to cap the spm seems to be to enforce a unform power per stroke at each speed. I understand the benefits of this but have the following problem: if I stroke very slowly (20 spm) I can't breathe often enough (since the breathing is synchronized with the stroke) and don't get enough oxygen. </td></tr></table> Until I read this post, I hadn't given too much thought to my breathing pattern while rowing. I just let it happen. Today I did a very short warm up about 7 or 8 minutes on the erg @18 spm. I realized that I take one breath per stroke. I begin to inhale as soon as I come out of the finish and continue to inhale all the way through the recovery. I exhale all the way through the drive. I don't know yet if my pattern changes at higher rates but I suspect it is the same at any rate.

[old] mike vb · Post by **[old] mike vb** » May 3rd, 2005, 2:37 pm

Having rowed off and on for 35 years and watched all kinds of breathing patterns both on the water and the erg as a coach, let me share this observation: Maximally efficient ventilation => CO2/ O2 exchange relies on too many factors to prescibe something specific for all ergometer atheletes. An athlete's long term history factors in the foremost. For example: an adequate number of breaths per minute for an 18 yr old "sprinter" who is at the top of his game is vastly different than what a 35 year old 10k distance will requir (even when these two hypothetical athletes are, say, pulling a 5k piece). This remains true even when both are at totally anerobic extremes. The reasons for this include but are not limited to: the differences in the development of the cardiovascular systems of each athlete, their VO2 max. , their lung capacity, etc. It would be great to have hard and fast rules here ~ I've never seen any ~ yet, this thread is interesting. If some one asked me for one piece of advice, I'd say: "RELAX" and don't worry about breaths per minute: Your autonomic nervous system will talke care of itself.

[old] bw1099 · Post by **[old] bw1099** » May 3rd, 2005, 8:53 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'>QUOTE</div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'>Don't worry about trying to breathing in, all you need to do is breath out and the in part takes care of itself. </td></tr></table> I somehow figured out about focusing on exhaling and letting inhaling take car of itself and feel like it has really helped me. Before I figured this out, I would always get winded very quickley and breathe out of control. When rowing I breathe once per stroke until I start really working, then shift to twice per stroke. I exhale with a fairly sharp puff at the catch and at the release.

[old] shu246 · Post by **[old] shu246** » May 7th, 2005, 11:34 am

"If some one asked me for one piece of advice, I'd say: "RELAX" and don't worry about breaths per minute: Your autonomic nervous system will talke care of itself." agree. i am not a physiologist, just a recreational erger. however my experience is that when, after a seat session is well underway, i close my eyes and let the mind drift, after some time performance has stabilized at some nice sustainable stroke rate, output, and breathing pattern. contrariwise, if i consciously try to tinker with the breathing pattern the result is (as w. edwards deming would predict in 'out of the crisis') chasing the target and degraded performance. currently (age 61; 6ft 2in; 34in inseam; 36in sleave) i seem to work best at about 20-21 spm with a sort of samurai breathing pattern, effort on the inhale, relax on the exhale; inhale with the catch, falling back so the shoulders pull the top of the chest cavity, mild push down with the diaphragm to extend the belly; exhale on the recovery stroke. -shu

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