Rowing

Breathing Effort in Rowing and Canoeing 

When rowing during a race, breathing can reach maximal levels in excess of 250 litres per minute for a heavy-weight male rower - the average ‘man in the street’ would be hard pushed to achieve even half this value. With such a high demand placed upon breathing it is easy to see why rowing induces fatigue of the breathing muscles, even in international athletes.

Inspiratory Muscle Training:

• Improved rowing time trial performance by up to 2.2% which, equivalent to slashing 60m in a 2km race 
• Increased strength of inspiratory muscles by 30 – 50% 
• POWERbreathe warm-up significantly improves rowing performance and reduces breathlessness in competitive rower

• Breathing Training

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  • Rowing requires the synchronisation of breathing and locomotion. This linkage pushes your breathing to its limits. During a 2000m race, as a rower you are breathing twice per stroke; breathing out during the initial part of the drive (when the blade is in the water), taking a breath as you reach the end of the drive, breathing out again as you come forward and taking a small breath just before ‘the catch’. This small breath at the catch is very important in terms of allowing the optimal transmission of force from the various body segments through the blade and into the water; the muscles of the torso to brace against a partially inflated lung. 

    The muscles of the torso include your breathing muscles, and it’s pretty difficult to brace the upper body and breathe at the same time, so you have to work your breathing in around the stroke rate. 

    POWERbreathe training specifically targets the breathing muscles, strengthening them by around 30-50%, significantly improving rowing performance and helping to eliminate breathing fatigue.

• Warm-up with POWERbreathe for Rowing and Canoeing

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    A POWERbreathe warm-up boosts your inspiratory muscle performance. 

    Research has shown that a standard pre-exercise warm-up routine fails to prepare the inspiratory muscles (breathing muscles) for the rigours of exercise¹, and an inspiratory warm-up was shown to improve performance (in rowers)².

    ¹ Specific respiratory warm-up improves rowing performance and exertional dyspnoea.

    ² Inspiratory muscle training improves rowing performance.

    More about POWERbreathe for warm-up can be found in our sports Training section.

• Cool-down & recover with POWERbreathe for Rowing and Canoeing

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    A POWERbreathe ‘cool-down’ can help to speed lactate clearance even more effectively than traditional active recovery strategies. 

    Researchers at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil have found that breathing against a small inspiratory load immediately after exercise reduces lactate by 16%.¹ What’s more, unlike a normal active recovery, which takes around five minutes to speed-up lactate clearance, inspiratory loading reduces lactate as soon as exercise stops. Furthermore, when using the inspiratory load, lactate concentration after just 5 minutes was equivalent to that achieved in 15 minutes during passive recovery. 

    ¹ Blood lactate during recovery from intense exercise: impact of inspiratory loading.

    More about POWERbreathe for cool-down can be found in our sports Training section.

• Interval Training with POWERbreathe for Rowing and Canoeing

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    Integrating POWERbreathe into your interval training will improve your respiratory endurance and hasten recovery. 

    More about POWERbreathe interval training can be found in our sports Training section.

• Resources

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  • Breathing During Rowing  

    How Training The Inspiratory Muscles Can Improve Rowing Performance 

• Research

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    Inspiratory Muscle Training

    • Entraînement de la force des muscles inspiratoires chez le sujet sportif amateur (Inspiratory muscles strength training in recreational athletes)
    • Inspiratory muscle training enhances pulmonary O2 uptake kinetics and high-intensity exercise tolerance in humans
    • The inspiratory muscle training in elite rowers.
    • Inspiratory muscle training improves rowing performance.
    • The influence of inspiratory and expiratory muscle training upon rowing performance.

    
    Warm-up and Cool-down

    • Inspiratory resistive loading after all-out exercise improves subsequent performance.
    • Specific respiratory warm-up improves rowing performance and exertional dyspnoea.
    • Blood lactate during recovery from intense exercise: impact of inspiratory loading.
    • Inspiratory muscle training reduces blood lactate concentration during volitional hyperpnoea.

    Exercise-induced Inspiratory Muscle Fatigue

    • Inspiratory muscle training improves rowing performance.
    • Influence of environmental temperature on exercise-induced inspiratory muscle fatigue.
    • Aerobic fitness effects on exercise-induced low-frequency diaphragm fatigue.
    • Exercise-induced diaphragmatic fatigue in healthy humans.
    • A comparison of inspiratory muscle fatigue following maximal exercise in moderately trained males and females.

    Miscellaneous

    • Development of respiratory muscle contractile fatigue in the course of hyperpnoea.
    • Inspiratory muscle training attenuates the human respiratory muscle metaboreflex.
    • Development and evaluation of a pressure threshold inspiratory muscle trainer for use in the context of sports performance.
    • Specificity and reversibility of inspiratory muscle training.
    • Inspiratory muscle training: a simple cost-effective treatment for inspiratory stridor.

    Review Articles

    • Effects of respiratory muscle training on performance in athletes: a systematic review with meta-analyses
    • Effect of respiratory muscle training on exercise performance in healthy individuals: a systematic review and meta-analysis
    • Inspiratory muscle training and endurance: a central metabolic control perspective.
    • Does training of respiratory muscles affect exercise performance in healthy subjects?
    • Respiratory muscle energetics during exercise in healthy subjects and patients with COPD.
    • Respiratory muscle training in healthy humans: resolving the controversy.