April 13, 2024

by: Vlady Zankavets

🌬Review of the article “Muscles of Respiration in Professional Hockey” by U. Zankavets 📃

 

🤼‍♂️In modern professional sports the level of competitiveness is high as never before. In order to attain even a micro-advantage, coaches are implementing non-trivial training means such as various breathing techniques. The idea behind is that when respiratory muscles become tired, less oxygen is delivered to working muscles [1]. This phenomenon is called the respiratory muscle metaboreflex [1]. Also, it should be considered that the weight of breathing muscles is up to 12% of the total muscle mass [2]. Its function during maximal intensity physical activity requires 16% of the total available oxygen [3].

🌬Hence, there is a hypothesis that improvements in breathing will be accompanied by: A) increased volume of oxygen available for the working muscles; B) decreased metabolic cost of breathing by itself, which in turn will raise performance.

🎯The goal of the current study is to quantify the effects of 6-week inhale-resisted training by professional KHL players.
🏒Subjects: 29 KHL players: 17 forwards, 9 defensemen, and 3 goaltenders.
📃Methods: the training protocol could be found in the full version of the article.

📈Results: 2 weeks of training led to an increase in strength (13.8%), peak flow rate (11.7%), and volume (6.0%) of a single inhalation. The following 4 weeks of training resulted in additional improvements in strength (10.4%), peak flow rate (9.3%), and volume (1.3%) of the inhalation.

❓The question is: will improvement of the components of the system lead to enhancement of the whole system? In other words, will the increase in strength, peak flow rate, and volume of inhalation lead to improved performance on ice? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Thank you for reading!

References:
1. Sheel, AW. Fatiguing inspiratory muscle work causes reflex reduction in resting leg blood flow in humans.
2. Popov, VP. About forgotten muscles.
3. McConnell, AK. Respiratory Muscle Training: Theory and Practice.

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