LAUSR

PurposeThe purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of three breathing techniques [normal breath (NB), breath holding (BH) and intermittent breath holding (IBH)] on finswimmers’ heart rate (HR), arterial oxygen saturation (SpO2) and maximum inspiratory pressure (PImax).MethodsTen young finswimmers (15.8 ± 0.5 years) performed 8 × 25 m freestyle leg kick trials under the three different breathing occasions (NB, BH and IBH). HR, SpO2 and PImax were recorded immediately after the end of each test.ResultsThe results showed lower SpO2 values immediately after the end of IBH technique in correlation with the other breathing techniques (IBH: 88 ± 0.9%; BH: 93.3 ± 0.7%; NB: 98.3 ± 0.3%; p < 0.001). Additionally, HR was higher after IBH compared to the other breathing techniques (IBH: 177 ± 4.2 bpm−1; BH: 165.7 ± 7.9 bpm−1; NB: 158.3 ± 2.2 bpm−1, p < 0.001) and PImax was also higher after the IBH compared to the other two techniques (IBH: 168.3 ± 5.3 cmH2O; BH: 166 ± 11 cmH2O; NB: 161.7 ± 11.4 cmH2O; p < 0.05).ConclusionThe data from the present study support that BH and even more so IBH training acutely increase the inspiratory muscles strength. This is an important training tool to improve the inspiratory muscle performance in athletes.