Prolonged exercise and the lungs

[kieran]

Just attended a course on spirometry, a spirometer is a device to measure lung volume and flow rate (often used in clinical practice for asthma and COPD diagnosis etc). Anyway as part of the course I had my measurements taken. My (Relaxed) Vital Capacity (VC) turned out to be about 6.6L, the predicted VC for my age, height, sex and ethnicity is 4.8L, so I am 137% about expected! This gives my Lung age as <20 years.

From Journal of Applied Physiology:

Pulmonary function in young and older athletes and untrained men
J. M. Hagberg, J. E. Yerg 2nd and D. R. Seals
Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri 63110.

This paper concludes: The older athletes were the only group whose lung volumes and pulmonary function measures were all, except for RV, substantially greater than expected based on their age and height. Thus prolonged strenuous endurance training in these older highly trained endurance athletes appears to have altered the decline in pulmonary function and volumes associated with aging.

So exercise reverses some of the effects of aging. So I just need to work on the rest of my body and get it back to a n age of <20 years.

I have no idea if having larger lungs helps with regards to improved performance (the name of the game) etc.

[Robh]

I use a Spiropet (spirometer) during level II FaCT tests.

My own vital capacity is 5.1L. Height is 5ft8, 37years old and 8 years of cycling.

Lab Rat 13 is 43 years old, height is 6ft1 with 1 years of riding. VC is 4.9L.

Kieran during a FaCT Vo2 test you would test for VE , RF, TV, FeO2 trend/ VO2 /breath and SpO2 to see the trends to determine if the respiratory system was a limitation.

VE is the total air you are moving in each of the steps.
RF is the respiration rate you had had in each of the steps.
VE/RF will give the tidal volume in each of the steps.
VO2 / RF will give the O2 moved in each of the steps.
FeO2 % will give the info on how much O2 you used for the total work on each of the steps. So O2 use is the from legs, heart and respiratory system and perhaps even from brain activity depending how much you was thinking during the test.
SpO2 will tell you how much O2 is still loaded on your Rbc.

[kieran]

Hi Rob, thanks for the reply, after my test I did some research (google), it seems that there is some confusion over whether larger lungs help with long distance running etc, (e.g. many long distance runners are small) and it may only have an effect once all other systems are optimised.?

[Robh]

I've not taken the FaCT level III certification course which uses Vo2 equipment to check for pulmonary limitation but from the level II tests I've done on my slef over the last 6 months I think my weak link is my repsiration.

Will test gain and check back with Juerg @ FaCT. If this is true then I will be purchasing the Spirotiger to work on this limitation.

What was interesting when I tested George last year it looked like from his test his limitation was his respiratory system. But that was a one off test and that system may have been tired on that day. With a few more tests looking at trends we would know if this was true.

Rob

[Robh]

A response from Juerg Kieren :-

Thanks Rob.
Here a few thoughts:
1. VC is a "passive" test, meaning it only tells us how big the bag is in one single breath deep and controlled.
People with something called emphysema have a very wide chest and a surprisingly big VC but a very poor ability ( loss of elasticity ) to
actually use the existing volume properly.

The lungs itself is a "passive " bag. The VC is strongly dependent on the flexibility of the spine in combination with the costovertebral joints.
In people with Morbus Bechterew ( ankylosis spondylitis ) one of the goals is to maintain the costo vertebral mobility as long and as good as possible.

In the late 1890 a Pastor / Dr. Klapp developed a very fascinating mobilization system , which still applies up to this days for people with all kind of spinal misalignments for Rachitis to idiopathic scoliosis.

So if we can motivate people if they age to keep spinal and costovertebral mobility we would see a much smaller decline in VC. In endurance sport . where we breath regular this is much easier to do.

We see in senior cross country skier the smallest drop in VC compared with cyclist , as cycling unfortunately does not do too much for costo vertebral mobility ( MTB better than road ).

The much better idea of a pulmonary function test is not only the VC but as well the VC 1 and VC 6 ( how much air you get out in 1 or 6 sec.
but than much more important is to see, how much of this 6.6 liter you really can use in a FTP intensity of on LBP.
Remember if you have a 6 liter bag and you fill in that bag only 2 liter you have a very low surface tension , which makes it harder to exchange O2 to the red blood cells.
O2 pressure difference.

So really a smaller VC with the same elasticity ratio and the same diaphragm endurance would be better.
There are very interesting measurement done on altitude, where high performance endurance athletes with lot's of muscles and double as big VC like the Sherpas or like a GUY R. Messmer had no chance to move the speed they go an needed O2 much earlier due to the problem of too big VC and too weak endurance ability of the diaphragm.

My son did some studies on the Kilimansharo and he clearly had the most muscles and the biggest VC but the lowest SpO2 from all the people ( all local guys , who walk up and down that mountain the whole time.)
So besides big VC you need a strong "motor" with a great endurance to actually benefit from this situation.

Body builder often have very big VC but are very poor endurance athletes due to exactly the fact , that very often their respiration will be short and often with pressure involved and lot's of mobility in the costo vertebral joints , but no endurance ability in the diaphragm and you often can hear them huff and puff after a set of strength exercises.

Summary . High VC is great , but it is not a free pass for a good respiratory pulmonary work ability .
You need besides the structural size of your lungs ( VC ) as well a great muscular endurance from your inspiratory muscle system.
To be able to breath very intense and long but in the same time you have to avoid ( hyperventialation ) or better dropping of pCO2 as you would get dizzy , you have to know how much air you have to re-breath to keep the pCO2 up, so you can do that over a longer time frame ( 15 min and longer.)

That's where the fundamental difference is between any of this systems like breath easy , power lungs and so on . They all help short term breath increase but don't address the function of the diaphragm , which is open of the classical endurance muscles in our body .
It is the longest working muscle in our body . You start your life with the first breath and you end you life with the last breath.
Old Greek wisdom.