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Lungs and heart

Old 09-15-21, 09:31 PM
  #26  
Hondo Gravel
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30 minutes for me then all smooth. I’m a Diesel engine lol. Starts slows warms up slow but once I’m warmed up I can go all day. Starting cycling back up this summer heat is almost gone and I could lose a few unwanted pounds.
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Old 09-15-21, 10:35 PM
  #27  
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Originally Posted by Iride01
My lungs always seemed to be the most limiting thing for my performance. And it stands to reason since they get CO2 out and O2 into your bloodstream so the muscles can use it.

It's been a 10 year process, but I don't feel as limited by my lungs as I once did. Though they are still probably the thing that limits me most. It's just that I've trained my legs and the rest of me to deal with their limitations. But.... it takes time.

Deep breathes anytime you think about breathing on or off the bike. If you cough after taking several deep breaths, then you need to work on that. I too used to cough after a really deep breath or two. Now I can breath deep and fast for a long time without wanting or needing to cough.

I read that pro cyclist have a very fast respiration rate on the bike. Somewhere on the order of 60 breathes per minute. But I only saw that once. Don't know if I was mistaken nor have I searched further for more info. Anyone else know about that?
Breathing and what's involved was and has been something I've worked on since being a young guy. I had some poor breathing habits which were limiting my athletic performance, when I was in High School. Wasn't until I got into Uni that this was well observed in me and many frosh recruits for 'crew'. Coach put everyone in a rowing tank, one by one, and evaluated every possible aspect, technique (which most had none of, including me), muscle engagement, ability to push past break points (like increasing stroke rate) and BREATHING.
I ended up making the selection and rowing bow in the #1 8 man... But coach outlined 2 major issues I had with my breathing, I broke into shallow, rapid breathing quickly, much too quickly. I would match/pace my breathing to the stroke rate - Both Big issues, for which he gave me exercises to help break those habits... Learn/work on diaphram/belly breathing, Break the breath matching cycle - he had me dribble a basketball, in place, at roughly 60 times a minute, and focus on deep breathing at a rate of mid-20s to 30. Worked pretty well, my endurance and overall power increased dramatically after just 3 months of these exercises...
55 years later, I often still exhibit those same issues, if I don;t pay attention. I break into high rate shallow breathing (not panting), and find sometimes matching my breathing almost to my cadence.. ugh...
Shallow, rapid breathing reduces oxygen and CO2 diffusion transfer. (The comment of a 60 breath rate/minute in Pro Riders seems a scary thing !)
I continue to work hard to not ignore good, deep breathing when under exercise stress. Yoga has helped a lot, since breath (prana) and breathing regulation (pranayama) are at the foundation/core of yoga.
There are a lot of references on the web for breathing for athletic performance and primary at the core always mentioned is diaphram/belly breathing - surprisingly Red Bull has a pretty good overview on breathing and athletics - https://www.redbull.com/ie-en/breath...ques-for-sport
As much as I need to focus on strength improvement, optimized breathing is core to my focus on cardio...
I've really calmed down these years in being 'competitive', except when I find myself riding with the younger riders... LOL! Somehow I seem to get sucked in on these hammerfests, regardless of the inevitable miserable outcome (currently - there;s always tomorrow... LOL!)
Ride On
Yuri
EDIT - And watching closeup video of the best TT riders of past and present will hilight the importance of breathing performance - often obviously that Belly Breathing is employed by all the greats.

Last edited by cyclezen; 09-15-21 at 10:44 PM.
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Old 09-15-21, 11:09 PM
  #28  
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Yes, one has to breathe deep and fast to hold panting at bay when climbing near one's aerobic limit. 60/minute is not abnormal, totally trainable. I've cramped chest muscles when getting into good shape. Takes concentration at first, but becomes natural. High rep squats, say 85% bodyweight are good, too.

Edit: I read that Redbull link. When I do my HR and HRV every morning, I breathe in for 3 heart beats and out for 6, kinda like that says.
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Old 09-16-21, 10:51 AM
  #29  
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This links to a great article. I couldnt get it to cut and paste for some reason.

Pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6656560/

Exercise Respiratory Patterns in Elite Cyclists and Sedentary Subjects

The abstract is brief but has some good infp esp regarding resp. rates as well as other measured lung metrics
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Old 09-16-21, 08:42 PM
  #30  
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^Quite so.
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Old 09-21-21, 06:17 PM
  #31  
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Originally Posted by Artmo
81, asthmatic. takes me at least 10 miles to be breathing easily
dude..fantastic that u still ride.
​i hope some type of uber bike??
do tell.
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Old 09-22-21, 12:54 PM
  #32  
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I go slow the first 10 minutes to give my body time to adjust and "get my wind" and it makes a great deal of difference. If I start out fast it works against my body. If your body needs 20 minutes or 30 minutes then take that amount of time. I also use lower gears when starting out as my muscles need time to warm up. Most beginning riders, and many experienced riders use too high a gear and put undo stress on their knees.

I get my best rides on hilly country as I power up the grade and then on the downhill sections my body can recover. It is like running intervals and has worked well for me over the years.
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Old 09-23-21, 06:21 AM
  #33  
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Originally Posted by thehammerdog
dude..fantastic that u still ride.
​i hope some type of uber bike??
do tell.
No uber bike, just a selection from the ones shown on my info, plus Cytronex e-assist on our tandem and the Trek 2300. We still get a workout with e-assist at its lowest level of 50W, when our group is traveling at 16-19 mph, as there is no throttle!!
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Old 09-23-21, 06:36 PM
  #34  
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Warmup is so much more critical for me now at 61, for my breathing in particular. But right out my front door, I'm instantly climbing. Makes it really hard to gradually warmup. Sucks, frankly. As a result I will often throw my gravel bike on the car and drive to a different spot to take off from, and then head to my fire roads and trails from there. Other times I just go for it but man, if ever move, I'm not moving to the bottom of a canyon again.
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Old 09-25-21, 05:58 PM
  #35  
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Lately I've complained that I run out of legs before I run out of lungs. Some of it is because I lost a lot of strength when I had covid. But I discovered another reason when I had bloodwork done earlier this week: my hematocrit level was 56%. Doc says I should probably donate blood to bring it down a bit.
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Old 09-25-21, 06:57 PM
  #36  
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At 63 hen I started riding for fitness a few months ago it was my lungs that went first and I did have the coughing on deep inhales. The coughing is gone now and now it is my legs that go first. When I was running track in high school I was taught to inhale every time my right foot hit the ground two times (4 steps) then exhale after 4 steps. I do the same on the cycle. Inhale every other right foot down stroke then inhale after 2 downstrokes. I guess at 80 RPM that is 20 breaths per minute. I am not cycling too hard about 100 watts and 15-18 MPH. Seems to work for me.
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Old 10-06-21, 10:01 AM
  #37  
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At 74, it takes me 6-8 miles to get warmed up. Also, I find a few minutes stretching before I head out makes a huge difference. I'm not in a big hurry to get anywhere these days, but I try to get my mid-ride HR around 150. Fortunately, breathing has never been a problem.
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Old 10-20-21, 09:10 PM
  #38  
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Wearing a HRM I was doing a quarter mile climb going from 5 to 9%. Been up it several times and this time I wanted to get a personal best. (Note I will be 67 in Dec). When I was climbing my HR went from 150 to 170. Giving it a final sprint to the top, my HR hit 186. At that time my Garmin beeped and gave me a warning that I had exceeded safe levels and to back off. I felt fine except oxygen starved and within a minute and some easy riding got down to 140. Don’t intend to hit my redline of 186 often but as a cardiac stress test, I passed. The Garmin didn’t know I couldn’t have exceeded that number if I had tried.
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Old 10-21-21, 11:48 AM
  #39  
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FWIW, there is a thought that in cycling:

1. Spinning taxes the heart and lungs; and
2. Grinding taxes the legs.

When you're running out of breath, try upshifting and going with a higher gear, and doing the opposite when your legs are tiring.
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Old 10-21-21, 01:17 PM
  #40  
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Originally Posted by Biker395
FWIW, there is a thought that in cycling:

1. Spinning taxes the heart and lungs; and
2. Grinding taxes the legs.

When you're running out of breath, try upshifting and going with a higher gear, and doing the opposite when your legs are tiring.
Yeah, I often do that in threshold intervals. Set out at around 90 rpm and then when my HR hits the limiter I change up and ride at 80 rpm at the same power. I find it a pretty effective strategy. Works on long hill climbs too, alternating between sit-and-spin and stand-and-grind.
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Old 10-21-21, 04:04 PM
  #41  
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Thanks to everyone who responded in this thread.

I'm 60. Been riding for a long time but not much at all from 2010-2019. Got back on the bikes last year with the extra free time afforded by not having to commute to/from work. This year I noticed some breathing discomfort during my first hard effort of the ride. I don't feel out of breath, but my lungs have a slight burning sensation. If I keep up the hard effort, it gets worse. If I take it easy for a few minutes, it goes away and does not return with subsequent hard efforts. It doesn't seem to matter how long I warm up with easy riding - OK, maybe it does, it's probably not as severe with a longer warmup. At first I thought it might be due to poor air quality we had from the Canadian and Minnesota wildfires back in July and August (I got a late start and started running and riding in July this year), but the air quality is fine now so that's probably not it. I don't recall this happening last year but I don't think I did much in the way of hard efforts last year.
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Old 10-21-21, 07:37 PM
  #42  
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Originally Posted by Gonzo Bob
Thanks to everyone who responded in this thread.

I'm 60. Been riding for a long time but not much at all from 2010-2019. Got back on the bikes last year with the extra free time afforded by not having to commute to/from work. This year I noticed some breathing discomfort during my first hard effort of the ride. I don't feel out of breath, but my lungs have a slight burning sensation. If I keep up the hard effort, it gets worse. If I take it easy for a few minutes, it goes away and does not return with subsequent hard efforts. It doesn't seem to matter how long I warm up with easy riding - OK, maybe it does, it's probably not as severe with a longer warmup. At first I thought it might be due to poor air quality we had from the Canadian and Minnesota wildfires back in July and August (I got a late start and started running and riding in July this year), but the air quality is fine now so that's probably not it. I don't recall this happening last year but I don't think I did much in the way of hard efforts last year.
Many people warm up with the usual moderate effort for say 20', then with a couple of all-out 90" intervals a few minutes apart, then a few more moderate minutes. Opens up the blood vessels. Everything will change as you come into form.
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Old 10-21-21, 08:36 PM
  #43  
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Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy
Many people warm up with the usual moderate effort for say 20', then with a couple of all-out 90" intervals a few minutes apart, then a few more moderate minutes. Opens up the blood vessels. Everything will change as you come into form.
I know all about warming up as I've been involved in endurance sports competition for over 45 years now. But the burning sensation in the lungs is new this year. Maybe it's normal aging. Maybe I had Covid and never knew it (never felt sick and was vaccinated back in April). Maybe it really is the poor air quality from the wildfires (I do remember having a similar burning lung sensation when I vacationed in LA in the summer of 1990 and raced in some triathlons on that trip, and I'm sure the air quality in LA back then was a lot worse than it is now). Anyway, I'm not too worried by it yet since it only occurs during the first hard effort of each ride. But if it is due to aging or some other medical issue, it could get worse, and that worries me a little.

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Old 10-21-21, 09:20 PM
  #44  
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Originally Posted by Iride01
My lungs always seemed to be the most limiting thing for my performance. And it stands to reason since they get CO2 out and O2 into your bloodstream so the muscles can use it.

It's been a 10 year process, but I don't feel as limited by my lungs as I once did. Though they are still probably the thing that limits me most. It's just that I've trained my legs and the rest of me to deal with their limitations. But.... it takes time.

Deep breathes anytime you think about breathing on or off the bike. If you cough after taking several deep breaths, then you need to work on that. I too used to cough after a really deep breath or two. Now I can breath deep and fast for a long time without wanting or needing to cough.

I read that pro cyclist have a very fast respiration rate on the bike. Somewhere on the order of 60 breathes per minute. But I only saw that once. Don't know if I was mistaken nor have I searched further for more info. Anyone else know about that?
That's hyperventilation, helps to get rid of pain and fatigue, but shouldn't last too long..
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Old 10-22-21, 08:49 AM
  #45  
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Originally Posted by holytrousers
That's hyperventilation, helps to get rid of pain and fatigue, but shouldn't last too long..
No, it's controlled deep breathing. Hyperventilation is a condition usually uncontrolled that can lead to dizziness along with several other conditions

While some use the term to mean deep controlled breathing such as before holding breath underwater, I'd prefer not to..
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Old 10-22-21, 11:16 AM
  #46  
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I've measured my own deep breathing at 60/min. when going hard. The idea is to hold back from panting as long as your brain will let you. One needs well developed chest muscles to breath like that, takes training that's all.
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Old 10-22-21, 03:49 PM
  #47  
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I have favored longer bike reach over the years as it opens up my lungs and I breathe more easily. This meant a custom frame and a specific length handlebar stem. Bikes for triathaletes were the first stock bikes to have what is referred to today as a more relaxed geometry. Bike shop personnel tend to focus on the customer's legs in determining frame size and this is where the new Specialized S sizing is a big step forward. The larger frames provide greater reach while keeping other dimension nearly the same..
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