Triathlon

Breathing Effort in Triathlon 

During triathlon your lungs are subjected to huge demands in each of the three endurance disciplines. 

During the first stage of a triathlon, swimming, your breathing is challenged as you have to inhale as much oxygen as possible in the shortest time possible, so you’re able to return to the optimal position for generating propulsive force. This obviously creates a huge strain on your inspiratory muscles and it is no surprise that you’ll experience significant fatigue of these muscles.

During the second stage of a triathlon, cycling, the very nature of the hunched position you need to adopt for aerodynamics will also create breathing problems because the contents of your abdomen (mainly your liver and gut) become compressed and pushed up against your main breathing muscle, your diaphragm. This restricts its normal movement and will make breathing feel much harder. 

Studies have suggested too that respiratory impairments induced by cycling carry over into the run, causing run performance to be impaired. It appears that the mechanical constraints of cycling i.e. restriction of the rib cage and diaphragm movement induce impairments in both inspiratory muscle function and lung diffusing capacity, both of which can impair performance.

During the third and final stage of a triathlon, running, your breathing muscles not only enable breathing, but they also work to stabilise your upper body during every foot strike. During this stage your breathing will be substantial and it’s no wonder breathing muscles fatigue after bouts of intense running.

Inspiratory Muscle Training:

• Increased swimming performance by up to 3.5% 
• Improved cycling time trial performance by 4.6% - equivalent to slashing 3-minutes off a 40k time trial 
• Enabled participants to cycle for 33% longer and with lower sense of effort 
• 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

  show

  • In the case of breathing during swimming, cycling and running, fatigue occurs almost exclusively in your inspiratory muscles and results in laboured, uncomfortable breathing and intense breathlessness. In addition, research shows that fatigue of your breathing muscles may result in diversion of blood away from your other working muscles, resulting in a reduced supply of oxygen to these muscles and impairing your performance. 

    Disciplined breathing technique will improve breathing comfort during swimming, cycling and running, and POWERbreathe training specifically targets the breathing muscles, increasing their strength and stamina by around 30-50%, significantly improving your performance and helping to eliminate breathing fatigue.

• Warm-up with POWERbreathe for Triathlon

  show
  •  

    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 Triathlon

  show
  •  

    A POWERbreathe ‘cool-down’ can help to speed lactate clearance even more effectively than traditional active recovery strategies, helping you recover more rapidly and avoid breathing muscle fatigue.

    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 Triathlon

  show
  •  

    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

  show
  •  

    How Training The Inspiratory Muscles Can Improve Swimming Performance  

    How Training The Inspiratory Muscles Can Improve Cycling Performance  

    How Training The Inspiratory Muscles Can Improve Running Performance  

    SwimForTri Tips for Improved Swim Performance 

• Research

  show
  •  

    Inspiratory Muscle Training

    Swim

    • Inspiratory muscle training improves 100 and 200 m swimming performance
    • Respiratory muscle training improves swimming endurance in divers.
    • Resistive respiratory muscle training improves and maintains endurance swimming performance in divers.
    • Respiratory muscle training improves swimming endurance at depth.

    Bike

    • Effects of inspiratory muscle training upon time trial performance in trained cyclists.
    • Inspiratory muscle fatigue in trained cyclists: effects of inspiratory muscle training.
    • Inspiratory muscle training improves cycling time-trial performance and anaerobic work capacity but not critical power.
    • Effect of high-intensity inspiratory muscle training on lung volumes, diaphragm thickness, and exercise capacity in subjects who are healthy.
    • The effects of different inspiratory muscle training intensities on exercising heart rate and perceived exertion.
    • Inspiratory resistive loading improves cycling capacity: a placebo controlled trial.
    • Effects of Inspiratory Muscle Training on Whole Body Exercise Performance in Males.

    Run

    • Inspiratory muscle warm-up and inspiratory muscle training: Separate and combined effects on intermittent running to exhaustion
    • Oxygen uptake kinetics and maximal aerobic power are unaffected by inspiratory muscle training in healthy subjects where time to exhaustion is extended.
    • Inspiratory muscle training improves shuttle run performance in healthy subjects.
    • Concurrent inspiratory muscle and cardiovascular training differentially improves both perceptions of effort and 5000-m running performance compared to cardiovascular training alone.
    • 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.
    • 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

    • Contribution of respiratory muscle blood flow to exercise-induced diaphragmatic fatigue in trained cyclists.
    • Changes in respiratory muscle and lung function following marathon running in man.
    • Alterations in maximal inspiratory mouth pressure during a 400-m maximum effort front-crawl swimming trial.
    • Influence of different breathing frequencies on the severity of inspiratory muscle fatigue induced by high-intensity front crawl swimming.
    • Inspiratory muscle fatigue in swimmers after a single 200 m swim.
    • Inspiratory muscle fatigue in trained cyclists: effects of inspiratory muscle training.
    • 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

    • 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
    • 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.
    • Inspiratory resistive loading after all-out exercise improves subsequent performance.

    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.