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What Respiratory Training Can Do For Your Summer Swim

December 08, 2018 2 min read



UB researchers conducted the study at the annular (doughnut-shaped) pool at the Center for Research and Education in Special Environments in Sherman Hall on the South Campus.


At the University in Buffalo, swimmers had to follow a specific resistance-breathing training protocol. After training with this so called breathing load , they improved their respiratory muscle strength by 33%. Their underwater scuba swimming time improved by 66%.

“Specific respiratory muscle training could allow divers in the military, civilian rescue services, commercial enterprises and sport to perform better underwater,” said Claes E.G. Lundgren, professor of physiology and biophysics in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and the study’s senior author.


“Typically, we think it’s the muscles that move the body that are fatigued when we tire,” he noted. “However, the increased work load of the breathing muscles is very important, particularly underwater during prolonged or high intensity exercise such as swimming.


“Increasing the strength and endurance of the respiratory muscles prevents their fatigue during sustained exercise, enabling divers and swimmers to sustain their effort longer without tiring,” Lundgren said.


Participants also underwent baseline tests to determine pulmonary strength (maximal pressures they could generate), pulmonary endurance (time that a high ventilation could be sustained), VO2max (the maximal volume of oxygen they could consume per minute to produce energy for exercise) and length of time they could swim at a moderately high speed.

