Squash

Breathing Effort in Squash

Running and lunging as you reach for the ball during a game of squash inevitably leads to extreme breathlessness and even de-stabilisation of your body. And after you’ve taken your shot you need to draw in as much air as you can and use the release of that air to transmit force to your shot.

It’s essential therefore that you don’t become debilitated by your breathing, because when you do your diaphragm’s breathing role takes precedence over its role in stabilising your core, postural control and movement. This, and in an increased breathing rate, can impair your performance.

Inspiratory Muscle Training:

• Accelerated recovery during repeated sprints by up to 7% 
• Improved inspiratory muscle strength by 31.2%
• Improved inspiratory muscle endurance by 27.8%
• Reduced whole body effort during exercise

• Breathing Training

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  • When you play squash your breathing rate increases and you need strong breathing muscles in order to cope with this high demand of breathing. POWERbreathe exercises your breathing muscles to become stronger, increasing their power and stamina and helping you cope with a high breathing demand. 

    In squash, your breathing muscles are also being used to help you twist dusting a racket stroke, yet when you experience a high breathing demand as your game progresses, your breathing role takes first place over your diaphragm’s role in movement, postural control and stabilising your core.

    Training with POWERbreathe will target specifically the breathing muscles, strengthening them by around 30-50%, significantly improving performance and helping to eliminate breathing fatigue.

• Warm-up with POWERbreathe for Squash

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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 & recovery with POWERbreathe for Squash

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    A POWERbreathe cool-down reduces lactate during exercise & speeds up clearance.

    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 Squash

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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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  • How Training The Inspiratory Muscles Can Improve Racket 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 warm-up and inspiratory muscle training: Separate and combined effects on intermittent running to exhaustion
    • Inspiratory muscle training enhances pulmonary O2 uptake kinetics and high-intensity exercise tolerance in humans
    • The effect of inspiratory muscle training on high-intensity, intermittent running performance to exhaustion.
    • The influence of respiratory muscle training upon intermittent exercise performance.
    • Effects of inspiratory muscle training upon recovery time during high intensity, repetitive sprint activity.
    • The effect of inspiratory muscle training on high-intensity, intermittent running performance to exhaustion.

    Warm-up and Cool-down

    • Inspiratory resistive loading after all-out exercise improves subsequent performance.
    • Effect of specific inspiratory muscle warm-up on intense intermittent run to exhaustion.
    • Specific inspiratory muscle warm-up enhances badminton footwork performance.
    • 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

    • 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.
    • The effect of exercise modality on respiratory muscle performance in triathletes.
    • A comparison of inspiratory muscle fatigue following maximal exercise in moderately trained males and females.
    • Inspiratory muscles experience fatigue faster than the calf muscles during treadmill marching.

    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.