Respiration – Key to Unlocking Success

How do we know when we have too much or not enough oxygen? How does our body regulate the level of these molecules? There are chemoreceptors whose function is to autoregulate chemicals (i.e., levels of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and pH in the blood) by adjusting respiration depending on the body’s needs. For example, if there is not enough oxygen due to the increased demand of exercise, the chemoreceptors (located at the aortic and carotid sinus) will detect this and send signal to the brain which allows the response to be communicated to the lungs to increase ventilation and bring in more oxygen, further stimulating vessels to vasodilate to provide more blood flow and the heart to increase contractility – which increases heart rate and cardiac output to increase blood flow and oxygen to the working areas. We need oxygen to contract our muscles allowing us to move and for sufficient function of our bodies.

Let’s continue to explore what happens when we are not getting enough oxygen and thus increase ventilation in response. This is indeed what occurs when we increase exercise, go up in altitude, and even when we have respiratory inflammation/disease. Ventilation increases so that we can improve our oxygen availability, it is instinctual and automatic that we breathe more. However, there is a catch here – as when we increase ventilation, this places increased stress on perfusion, as the ratio between ventilation (V) and perfusion (Q) is critical for optimization and oxygen delivery. It is best that this ratio is matched or equal. However, in our case with an increased ventilation response, there becomes a mismatch in the ratio V/Q, diminishing oxygen perfusion. To clarify, we describe a situation where there isn’t enough oxygen due to the exercise stimulus and that is what causes increased ventilatory responses, but the lower oxygen at the alveolar level (from decreased perfusion) also results in the vasoconstriction of our vessels to compensate and adapt to the ideal level of perfusion. Side note, if this didn’t improve the ratio and we still were not getting enough oxygen into our system, this could lead to pulmonary hypertension and eventually pulmonary edema (in the case of high-altitude medicine as well as clinical settings). 

In a real situation, when we sense ourselves to be lacking oxygen, our body detects this via the chemoreceptors, increases ventilation, which may create a mismatched ventilation/perfusion ratio, and we would then decrease our pace or exercise intensity. All of this to regain the equal ratio of ventilation/perfusion to improve oxygen transport and oxygen availability further down the cascade to our muscle cells. So, why do we slow down? To keep up with the availability of oxygen and allow our body to perfuse efficiently.

By exercising and incorporating breathing exercises into our lifestyles and understanding more about how our lungs work, we are on the way to improving our health and exercise performance. Our body can change the rate of ventilation (breathing frequency) and the depth of our respirations (shallow versus deep breathing) which is helpful for improving our oxygen availability. I believe we already make some natural adjustments when we exercise, don’t you? By using challenging conditions/environments, we stimulate our lungs to adapt and work through becoming more efficient at making oxygen available to our bloodstream and tissues. There is quite some research done currently to highlight the effectiveness of breathing exercises to improve lung function and this translates to the heart, stress, mental health, etc. It is intriguing to dig further into this and realize how training our breath and even just taking some big deep breaths regularly can improve our capacity. 

Breathing exercises can include but are not limited to: deep inhalations with emphasis on diaphragmatic breathing; the Wim Hof Method (Iceman) with 30 quick deep breaths (in the nose, out the mouth) after the last exhale and hold for 10+ seconds or until you feel the urge to breathe again; box breathing and gradually increasing the duration of the breath holds (breathe in, hold, breath out, hold, repeat) where the holds can be 3-4 seconds to start; voluntary hypoventilation at low lung volumes (periods of exercise with reduced breathing frequency are interspersed with periods with normal breathing). 

This voluntary hypoventilation requires a technique that consists of short breath holdings which can be performed during different types of exercise: running, cycling, swimming, rowing, skating, etc. We do that at low lung volume, meaning that the breath holdings are performed with the lung half full of air. To do so, first exhale normally, without forcing, then hold one's breath (called the exhale-hold technique). So it is an inhalation (natural normal breath), initial exhalation [natural immediately after inhalation with importance that there should still be some air left (not trying to get all air out)], the hold (following initial exhalation, the breath must be held for several seconds – not maximal – but 3-5 seconds—shorter for more intense exercise and a little longer for less intense exercise). The advice is to start with a shorter hold and build the duration to increase the challenge later. Followed by the second exhalation (once you need to breathe, first perform a sharp exhalation that is quick and powerful, and you’ll feel like you’ve really emptied your lungs). The purpose of this maneuver is to get rid of the carbon dioxide that has built up in your lungs – and allows exercise intensity to be maintained.

Remember that how we bring oxygen into our bodies (increased lung capacity) will increase the ability to perfuse oxygen into our blood and further to organs and tissues. This part of our bodies needs training too with challenging stimuli. These breathing techniques could be interesting to spend time doing and look ahead to see what happens when you incorporate them regularly over a few weeks. We can even do them during our ‘off’ training time. Let’s give it a try together, I’m in!