Abstract

We investigated the breath-by-breath pattern of ventilatory response to bicycle exercise in seven elite male cyclists (VO2max = 71.7 ml/min/kg) and ten sedentary males (VO2max = 47.3 ml/min/kg) to analyze differences in breathing patterns between individuals with normal and high exercise ventilations (VE). The mean VEmax of the athletes (ATH) exceeded that of the sedentary subjects (SED) by 34.6 (183 vs 136 l/min) and was proportional to the difference in VCO2max between the groups (5.9 vs 4.23 l/min). The ATH used an average of 89 of their 15-s maximum voluntary ventilation (MVV) during maximum exercise while SED used only 71 . The ATH had slightly, but not significantly, larger vital capacity (FVC). Both groups used about half of their FVC at maximum tidal volume (VT), VT was 47 and 49 of FVC in ATH and SED, respectively. The ATH achieved the higher VEmax by achieving a greater increase in respiratory frequency (63/min vs 49/min), which was accomplished by significant decreases in both inspiratory (TI) and, more importantly, expiratory (TE) time. Both l/TI and mean inspiratory flow (VT/TI) were highly correlated with VE, but there were no differences in these relationships between ATH and SED. Verf.-Referat (gekuerzt)