Today’s workout entertainment included an edition of The Roadman Podcast “Secret to Cycling Fast At A Low Heart Rate ¦ Prof Seiler”
Anthony asked a question about measuring lactate and Seiler sets out the case for measuring breathing rate / ventilation instead.
The short summary is that blood lactate level is a lagging indicator and that breathing rate is useful as it “gives us a much more precise measure of how deep is this athlete digging at this moment” and that the ability to measure it real time in the field is not far away.
Quite interesting (to me) stuff. The video below should start at right about the moment the section on breathing / ventilation starts.
I’ve been using respiratory rate (and breathing pattern) to guide training for years now. I’m always surprised more people don’t think to use it because like Seiler says here, it’s another vital sign you can easily measure, that’s telling you exactly how your body is doing. Maybe this is my medical background biasing me though.
It’s easy, reliable, and has good precision/accuracy/consistency. Many chest straps already measure it for you and give you this data.
Along with leg feel, breathing rate and depth are the things that make up most of my qualitative sense of RPE.
VT2 is reallllyy easy obvious as it’s when you can’t breathe any faster - ie: huffing and puffing; “VO2 breathing.” VT2 correlates really well with LTHR, and lags a bit less than HR does. If you have HR suppression from training lots, it’s also going to be more accurate than trying to aim for time above HR target when doing VO2 intervals. I’ve always used it as my cue that I’m doing VO2 intervals correctly - maximize time spent VO2 breathing.
It also lets you estimate LTHR really quick and easily. Don’t need to ride all out for an hour. Just do some VO2 intervals and see what HR you start panting at.
VT1 is more subtle. While tidal volume increases early on in response to increasing workload, respiratory rate only starts to increase around VT1. This is the basis for the “talk test” people mention for low aerobic training. Typically, VT1 is about where your resp rate has increased enough that you can’t say more than 5-10 words on a single breath. With practice you can sense this easily. You can then go back to your data and see what RR this correlates to as well.
This is useful for me because I use VT1 as one variable for my rough upper limit for endurance rides. I can then go back after the ride too and look and resp rate and see if it was too high or not. Though I can usually tell by leg feel afterwards too.
I tend to be a data minimalist. I certainly like looking at and collecting data. But for actual guiding training decisions, I tend to keep things very simple. And I really like resp rate and breathing pattern personally.
To clarify possible confusion for non-native English speakers: breathing/respiratory rate (inhale/exhale) is not same as ventilatory rate (breathing rate x breath volume).
I believe HR straps measure breathing rate, and not very precisely – Garmin shows my VO2max workout ~40bpm, vs counting it myself ~60bpm.
I know that Garmin will derive this from HRV but my understanding is that it’s not super accurate if you are really going to use respiration rate for pacing and intervals.
@ivegotabike Steve Neal and other Canadian coaches who are disciples of Jeurg Feldman often talk about respiration. (All the Moxy people.)
I’ve studied it a bit and I do think that it is next level stuff. The top Swiss mountain bikers also do respiration training (Shurter, Neff). The downside for the amateur is that they use a $1500 Spirotiger device to get the full training benefit. Most of us don’t have the budget for a $1500 device that might move the needle a few percent.
You can find this info by searching for podcasts with Steve Neal, Luke Way, or Andrew Sellars. You can probably find 10 or 15 different podcasts.
I don’t use measured resp rate at all during riding. Breathing pattern and the subjective experience of breathing are what I focus on during a ride.
VT2 breathing is the cue for VO2 work, and VT1 is part of the cue for the upper limit of endurance work. These are not based on measured respiratory rate during exercise, but by subjective markers of breathing rate (“VO2 breathing” and 5-10 word talk test).
HRV does fairly accurately predict respiratory rate. The issue with measurements in real life is usually inadequately accurate measurements of HRV during exercise.
I wouldn’t rely on an optical wrist-worn device for this, if you were trying to measure your exact respiratory rate.
I haven’t seen any peer-reviewed data on Garmins resp rate accuracy with a chest strap so won’t commit to how accurate it is. In theory this methodology should allow it to be quite accurate, but who knows in real life.
I’d also add that I’m not sure if using live respiratory rate readings would ever be accurate enough to allow you to pace based on the reported number alone.
For example, when I borrowed medical equipment from work for fun one time… my RR for endurance riding was 28-30. RR for threshold intervals was around 35-40.
In a blog post from a few years ago, Friel writes about early power meters costing $4000, with prices coming down to a little less than half that price by the early 2000s.
I’ve been following respiratory training for like 5 years and the Swiss medical device only doubled in price after they came out with the new version and now it’s no longer available. I suspect that this will remain in the realm of a small number of top endurance athletes doing it with little trickle down to amateurs.
That last Steve Neal podcast I linked is really good. He talks about doing it on a budget since the Idiag Spirotiger is no longer available.
I have the Breathway Bag. It definitely adds endurance to your diaphragm muscles.
My cycling has changed in the last few years from being as fast as I can be to just being pretty fit all year long so I haven’t taken the respiratory training through a build cycling and I can’t say it gave me 10 or 20 watts at threshold or whatever.
I suspect it works and adds that last few percent to your threshold and endurance. If I were racing for podiums I’d spend the money on all the devices along with a Moxy but I just can’t justify it nor do I want to train for that last watt currently.
A couple of years ago I tried some breathing techniques while doing hard group rides and they work. One, for example, was one I got from XC skiiers. When they come to the top of the hill they do some hard co2 exhales while going down the other side. It helps prepare you for the next rollers. I found I could last way longer on these group rides which were up and down and up and down.
You should give Alpha HRV a try, as it also will extrapolate respiration rate. My coach likes to look at it for vo2 efforts. Seems pretty accurate to me.
So what’s old is new again! Anyone in the late 90s that read Daniels Running Formula had been measuring intensity by breathing rate for years.
I still use power on the bike and hr on the bike and run, but I went completely back to breathing and RPE around a year ago. So much more enjoyable and I’m actually improving again rather than basing whether things are working on whether this metric or that metric improved from one week to the next
Runners synchronize inhales and exhales with their steps. Swimmers do it with strokes. I heard a running coach say that the brain seems to like the rhythmic anticipation of the next breath.
Cyclists spinning at 80-100rpms with gearss can’t really do that so the breath rates usually just goes on autopilot unless there is an intervention. My guess is that some cyclists just do the right thing naturally and then some don’t.
When cutting edge science is saying that measuring how hard an endurance athlete is breathing is a good indicator of effort level… aren’t we back at square one 200 years ago? lol
Not true, at least for myself I try breathe in a way where each exhale corresponds with and equal number of alternating pedal strokes. Basically starting at one with a right pedal downstroke, then my next exhale synchronizes with a left downstroke for whatever number of rpms later. It’s not that scientific, but I try to do it in a way that slows my breathing, focuses on filling up my lungs and getting into a rhythm.
This is in training and sometimes in racing when it makes sense.
I don’t think it’s anything new and I picked up this practice decades ago after reading an article about it in maybe Bicycling Magazine.
It’s also a helpful way to break up intervals.
I use that a lot but the amount of artefacts I get doesn’t really do a lot for the accuracy of it though. I use a Polar sensor and belt. How do you get on with the artefacts?
I lot of respiratory training comes down to training the diaphragmatic muscles so that when they fatigue, they don’t pull your threshold down.
Being able to control ventilation rate has the same effect. Say at threshold you breath at 40 breaths per minute. Maybe with training, you get that down to 30 taking in more air per breath. Over the course of a 2 hour race you’ve dramatically reduced the total number of times you move your diaphragm in and out.
I can understand that for sure. When I’m in that situation, my way around it is to keep my breathing steady, at least as much as possible, then resume a rhythm at a new consistent cadence. The way that I do it is more of a practice and at times it just doesn’t apply. A very steep pitch, a hike a bike, an unexpected jump across a rut, etc means that I focus on my bike handling and the terrain. But, when it’s back to grinding out a climb or putting out an effort, I just get back to it - or I might not because I’m not thinking about it.
It’s really something that is easy to practice on the trainer when holding a steady cadence and wattage and what I’ve found is that during my less intense intervals, I can keep that breathing rate steadier and lower for longer. When progressing to Threshold and of course VO2’s…my breathing rate eventually has to increase, but by trying to keep it in sync and take slower deeper breaths I can try and “control” and keep HR lower. An easy way to compare your results are when you are doing equal length intervals, count how many exhales per intervals. See how much it fluctuates.
With all that said, I don’t do any other breath training except for some box breathing in the morning for a few minutes or some 5-10 minute meditations.
