Beware: Hyperventilation
Many popular “breathwork” schools promote hyperventilation: panting that washes carbon dioxide out from your body. It has dire consequences:
- Suppresses the Verigo-Bohr effect and hampers oxygen release in tissues
- Reduces blood circulation by ~1/3
- Decreases the erythrocyte volume
- Increases the tonus of the coronary arteries
- Causes muscle convulsions and spasms
- Increases the concentration of adrenaline and noradrenaline in the blood plasma
- Leads to arrhythmia and cardiovascular insufficiency
- As a component of the stress reaction, potentiates ischemic damage of organs
- Increases the breath hold time by ~1.5 times—but may be lethal to free divers
- If done before a hard breath hold, leads to pathological levels of hypoxia
- Activates glycolysis to compensate for the effects of respiratory alkalosis
In case you do not know some of the fancy words, all of the above can be summed up as “bad news.”
Some people like hyperventilating because it makes them high. At StrongFirst, we choose to remain in full control of our faculties. |
| Breathe hard—the right way
…Yet breathing hard and fast is a must to strengthen your respiratory muscles. What is the solution?
To find out how Russian athletes do it without all the negative effects of excessive loss of CO2, CLICK HERE |
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