I told myself that the day I couldn't walk my dog over to the park, play, and come back without feeling out of breath would be the last day that I would be totally physically inactive. Well, today I walked in the door with my head down as I tried to hide my deep breathing, so why am I out of breath? You've heard it just as often as I have "I could hardly breath" or "my lungs couldn't take it anymore". Well, although that is how you FEEL, it is not what is occuring from a physiological standpoint. Your lungs are providing your body with enough oxygen but due to reasons such as nitrogenous waste build up in your muscles, the oxygen being delivered to your muscle tissues is insuffice. Even with no metabolic by-product build up, you're feeling out of breath because your tissues are depleted of oxygen, not because you aren't breathing hard enough. So, it's not that YOU are out of breath but your tissues are out of breath so to speak.
You're going to feel as though if you can just inhale a little more air you'd be able to keep the effort or take it up one more knotch, you're breathing harder and harder as you ramp up the effort but no matter how hard you breath you're still feeling out of breath, don't try and take deeper breaths. Breathing rate and strength will increase from sympathetic stimulation triggered by insuffice oxygen (fuel) being delivered to the tissue, so long as your breathing isn't abnormal then you're fine.
Why can't the lungs be trained? Because the lungs are not muscles, plain and simple, think about it, if your lungs were able to take in more air then they would need to get bigger, if they were able to get bigger then they would have the potential to outgrow the cavity in which they lie. You can argue that the muscles involved in respiration can be trained, notably, the diaphragm, external and internal intercostals, and the transverse abdominus during forced exhalation. But, these will not increase your vital capacity (amount of air you can inhale and exhale during maximal inhalation and exhalation), they MAY be able to increase the force at which the air enters the lungs but not the amount of air. This would have very, very little, if no significant effect on performance because the diaphragm and intercostals don't have a hard time inflating a couple of bags with air to begin with anyways.
If your lungs are taking in enough oxygen then why are your tissues not getting enough? Well, as I mentionned previously, it could be a build up of metabolic waste that is inhibiting exchange and overall muscle function for other reasons that can become a whole new discussion of their own or your blood isn't able to bring your muscles enough fuel. Therefore your tissues are in a state of hypoxemia and a message is sent from your brain to your heart telling it to increase cardiac output because increasing blood flow is how your body increases the rate of nutrient delivery. Vessels that do not supply your working muscles become constricted to increase blood flow to the muscles that need it most, this is why if you were lying on the couch and you were to get up and do some sort of intense physical activity right away if would feel like your lungs are about to collapse.
VO2Max will come into play for delivering enough oxygen to the working tissues as well because it's the effeciency of O2 uptake, this is not trainable either. If you're VO2Max is as high as Trevor's then you don't have to stress yourself out about it but if it's somewhat low, no worries, there are ways to overcome it. Most importantly, increasing red blood cell count, or how much oxygen is being transported in the blood and makes its way to the tissues in need.
So, how to we increase red blood cell count? Well, that is also a whole other discussion and within the next couple days I will post up the process of producing red blood cells and the legal and illegal ways of going about doing it.
*Note: I am by no means an expert on physiology but I do think I have a pretty good understanding of what I've learned so far, feel free to add to or argue what I have written*
Hey Justin, nice work on keeping the blog going!
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to dispute the comment that VO2max is not trainable. Increasing your red blood cell count would increase your VO2 max score; the number is the result of many factors, many of which can also be trained for improvement. Some people don't respond much to training, while others do significantly, but this is mostly genetics.
http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/87/3/1003?ijkey=189eebcbc5a461258da582b4aef41ebcf7bec51f&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha
Holy crap man, you're alive!!! haha, no one has heard from you since you peaced. We'll have to catch up on things sometime soon.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the read, I love JAP online, great stuff. Too bad there isn't much concrete evidence on V02Max increase but it's interesting to see that, even if it's only a slight increase, it's possible to increase it in the first place. I had no idea.
I'd have to argue that VO2 Max is somewhat trainable by doing something like Tabata intervals or basically intervals where you are going full out past your threshold for a short interval. If you are not given the genes for a high VO2Max then it will not go as high as somene else who has the genes, but I'd have to say that it is still fairly trainable to at leasts a certain level. I guess that would be why some pro cyclists VO2Max top out at the low 70 while other have creeped into the early 90's. A good example, for the past 2 weeks before I did my base line testing, I had taken 10 days off the bike completely, and hadn't hit a max HR (extreme race pace) since I hadnt raced in about 4-6 weeks. My VO2 Max dropped about 5-6 ml/kg/min. Although I did gain some weight and if I was at the same weight that I had tested at earlier it still would have been 3 points lower. Now when I am tested in mid seasonn I would expect it to be just over what I tested at at the end of last season. So I'd say that it's trainable but to a certain point.
ReplyDeleteSolid blog post, keep em coming!