This is an active process, which requires muscle action and uses oxygen.ĭuring exhalation, the diaphragm and external intercostals (rib muscles) relax and the thoracic cavity becomes smaller. Especially when something goes wrong, as in the notorious side stitch, which can be so painful that some people who’ve never experienced it before may think they’re having a heart attack!ĭuring inhalation, the diaphragm and external intercostals (rib muscles) contract to make the thoracic cavity larger. In other words, the muscles we use to breathe (see figure 1) are important. But when we are working close to our maximum work output (VO 2max), scientists have found that the muscles involved in breathing can account for as much as 10 percent of our total oxygen consumption - simply in the effort to keep oxygen (in the air) coming in as fast as we need it J Appl Physiol 1992 72: 1818–1825. All I knew was that I had discovered lung capacity I never knew existed.īreathing is something we normally do without conscious thought, somewhere between 17,000 and 26,000 times a day for the average adult. At the time, I had no idea what had happened. Tiredness fell away, and I felt a rush of exhilaration I have never forgotten. Then suddenly, there was a surge of cool air to parts of my lungs I didn’t even know existed. Initially, that looked like a bad decision, as fatigue mounted and I struggled to keep going. I’d never been a runner, but running, I’d been told, was the best way to get in shape to breathe at those elevations, so I was putting in 5 kilometres several times a week, in the hope of being fit enough to reach the summit.Īs the big day drew near, I got ambitious, and decided to go for a second lap of a favourite 4-kilometer route. I was a 24-year-old graduate student doing a clerkship in Seattle, Washington, dreaming of climbing the 4,400-metre volcano that tantalised me from my office window. One of my most vivid sports memories is the moment I learned how to breathe.
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