- Jul 5, 2009
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LaFlorecita said:I tried it too, and it did not work for me either. I thought it could be a personal thing, but really, thinking about it, it's simple human anatomy. If you put your head back (which is basically what you do when looking straight ahead on a bike) the oral cavity aligns with the trachea whereas if you keep your head in a normal position which would translate to staring at your stem on a bike, there's a 90 degree angle. So naturally the air flow will be less obstructed in the head back position. You can test it out for yourself, see in which position you feel you can breathe deeper/more easily, head back or head in normal position.Dear Wiggo said:pastronef said:Dr Michele Ferrari's blog about Froome breathing technique (from 2013)
the real Dr Ferrari, not some twitter funny alter ego
"i believe that this breathing technique, adequately trained and associated with a strengthening of the respiratory muscles, may bring advantages over an uncontrolled breathing, so frequent even among top athletes"
https://twitter.com/Spitinthesoup/status/610094341219069953/photo/1
mind, he's on the juice like the others, I am not exchanging breathing with peds.
I read this. And then later tried it. Your mouth / throat is more open tilting your head back than down. It's like closing a pipe or pinching off a tube when putting your head down.
Even if the flow rate was improved, I really super doubt that air flow rate is a limiting factor in performance. You're still stuck with the limited exchange rate of gasses across the alveoli. I'm taking a complete guess, but I'm guessing that the heart rate and breathing rate are matched to maximize the oxygen uptake based on the gas exchange rate. Further, my understanding is that "belly breathing" became widely practiced because it was more effective than breathing rapidly. The idea behind it is to draw deeper breaths that more effectively exchange volumes of stale air at the lobes of your lungs - thereby expanding the amount of oxygen exchanged with each breath.
John Swanson