agoodale

I don't know clinically what constitutes too fast. How I explain it to others is that when I'm going all out on a climb after a few minutes the "too fast" breathing will begin. Like someone gasping for air while trying to stay above water. If I don't concentrate on getting it under control then it gets to a point where I have to almost completely stop for a minute or so. At that point my legs still feel ok (no cramping, can still turn over the cranks) but my upper body, lungs, & head feel very heavy with fatigue. An extreme drowsiness & light headed feeling I guess.

Concentrating on breathing slow & steady is helping (along with medication). But that's a real challenge on a climb where the grade varies and the peloton is heading up the road without you. There is definitely a habitual "panic" reaction to extreme exertion that is taking time to overcome. So far it's been slow but steady progress over the last 2 years since I was diagnosed.

ericm979

Not breathing deeply. I notice it mostly at ftp or therebouts. If I am going all out I have no choice but to breath deep.

alexp247365

I seem to be the opposite. Last week in computrainer class, I had my eyes closed wishing for death during an FTP interval. Still not breathing heavy, although the heart-rate was sky high. Wonder if all the sleep related stuff, and breathing is related to just being over-trained/burnt out? Although mentally, I don't feel burnt out.

jeebusaurousrex

That sucks big time. I averaged about a pack a day from 14 - 21 and can't imagine what kind of damage that **** did to my developing lungs.

In a related note, I'm sort of paranoid that riding behind cars and trucks and diesel powered vehicles/generators all the time in the city is slowly messing with my lungs.

alexp247365

Flipped my stem back up for tonight's ride on the rollers. Surprisingly, I was able to breathe the way AZtallRider linked. I had flipped it down after my initial FTP test for computrainer class 8 weeks ago, and only ended up finishing two of the 8 workouts. If I had to guess, I'd say having my stem flipped down constricted my breathing way too much. Felt good to be able to breathe out forcefully for a change. One issue down... Thanks for all that contributed to this thread with ideas.

Tunnelrat81

Same for me. For years I've been primarily mouth breathing because of easily/always closed passages. I find that the more you force the use of your nose, the more the mucus flows and keeps it clear. It's still not perfect, but I'm able to nose-breath much more regularly now that I spent lots of time concentrating on it. It still effects my sleep, but using breath-right type strips helps greatly with that. I'll still often wake up with one side closed, but that's better than before, and my sleep is better.

Oh, and my nose-break was mid highschool. I don't specifically remember my breathing being effected back then, so my passages may have already been narrow, but I doubt the break helped things.

Just try to force yourself to breath (especially in) through your nose and with some luck you'll slowly be able to get them opened up. I read some interesting articles about it and spent weeks concentrating on keeping my mouth closed. It comes and goes for me, sometimes I do well and other times I catch myself...but overall I'm much better. I envy the guys with huge nasal passages...just don't yet feel strongly enough about it to consider medical fixes.

-Jeremy

Hermes

I did z4 climbing efforts yesterday. On the first effort, I focused on "belly breathing". I found my power would drop when I tried to breathe deeper. This may have been lack of focus. On the second effort, I breathed normally. My breathing was deep but not forced. My average power was about 5 watts higher. What is interesting is that when I stop the effort my breathing rate increases dramatically but at the time, I could have keep going. This is obviously very qualitative and inconclusive information.

Last year I was doing motor paced Kilos with Roger Young at the Home Depot Center 250 track. After a 3 lap windup behind the motor, I did the last 250 on my own. Roger emphasized that the key to going faster and maintaining the windup speed through the last 250 was total relaxation on the bike.