Hi All,
Do any of our resident experts have any tips on breathing during vo2 sessions? I get a horrid sensation in my ears (like they’re clogged or popping). I used to get this back in my strength training days and could alleviate a lot of it by focusing on breathing technique but I’m not so sure what is right for cycling.
Ta
You might want to start here. It doesn’t cover VO2 exclusively, but covers a lot under the subject of breathing.
I don’t know but when I’m up in that range it’s like a valve being slammed shut in my lungs just when I need more air.
There are things like the airofit that will train your lungs and other inspiratory and expiratory trainers. According to a scientific review, they only work if you get feed back from a manometer or valve etc. So the expensive airofit that connects to your phone is good, the cheaper one not, by this theory. Powerbreathes which have a valve are good but not devices that just use different sized holes. I did a bit of research into it but then did none of it because none of the devices can be sanitised properly!!
Airofit seems popular with cyclists but it’s pricey!! And powerbreathe , also expensive for what it is, seems to have some market with athletes.
Agreed. Using ChatGPT to provide answers whilst signing off posts as a coach advertising ones coaching business…red flag for me!
Having read now deleted post, about the breathing from the stomach, it reminded me of this podcast from Wahoo Knowledgebase
Mac and Jeff look at how breathing works, why kids and animals are the only ones who really breathe properly, and why you’re probably not breathing as efficiently as you could be. After taking you through a breathing exercise to help you get a better sense of how you breathe, they share some thoughts and tools that can help you improve your breathing efficiency.
Learn more:
https://www.wahoofitness.com/blog/by-the-numbers-what-is-vo2-max/
I read a really interesting article about how ChatGPT works and why some computational linguists are horrified at its sudden celebrity.
It constructs answers based on statistical analysis of all the sentences it has in its enormous corpus, which means it can’t say anything original (apart from the odd haiku), it will give you the answer an average fitness enthusiast would give, and it can’t speak from experience because it has none.
I’ve found it useful for precising articles but it is useless if the article isn’t in its corpus and when I’ve asked it about Japanese phrases I haven’t understood it always tell me that’s its a common idiom and then explains that its a metaphor for the transient nature of spring…or something.
So yes, information from ChatGPT should be flagged as such because at best it is pedestrian and at worst it is wrong.
It’s really disturbing that people are talking about having conversations and even relationships with it when it never shows any interest in the user or asks questions, it only answers them. Nor does it spontaneously give an opinion. In short, it can’t pass the Turin test if people remember what other people act like!
I’ve had that same ear popping feeling during high intensity intervals, especially when I push my breathing hard on the bike. I found that practicing deep belly breathing outside of workouts made a difference for me, just building a little more control when I get breathless. After a couple months of doing just five or ten minutes a day, I felt way less of that pressure, and my recovery between efforts improved a bit too.
Recently I started using a lung strength trainer for extra work on both inhale and exhale phases. It’s pretty portable so I just throw it in my gym bag with the rest of my kit. Definitely helped with my breath control and made those tough VO2 sessions feel a bit less intimidating.
