The Effect of Hyper-Oxidative Breathing on Physical Endurance

Abstract

Increasing endurance can have important implications for anyone looking to improve their physical performance. Hyper-oxidative breathing techniques, such as the one utilized in the Wim Hof Method, have been proven successful in improving endurance in individuals. This study explores the physiological effects of a hyper-oxidative breathing technique, based off of the Wim Hof Method, on physical endurance. The physiological parameters observed were heart rate, blood pressure, as well as wall-sit duration, in seconds. The BIOPAC student lab system (BSL 4 software, MP36) was used in this experiment. Blood pressure was measured by utilizing an “OMRON 10 Series +” automatic blood pressure monitor (BP791IT, OMRON, Inc.). These effects are measured by implementing the breathing technique during an anaerobic exercise, a wall-sit, under normal, non-extreme conditions. Participants performed two trials of wall-sits, one without the breathing technique, then another one week later with the breathing technique. It was found that the breathing technique was effective in elongating the duration of a maximal-effort wall-sit for the entire group of participants as a whole. The heart rate data recorded during the initial wall-sits without the breathing exercise plateaus earlier, at 40 seconds, than the normal breathing heart rate, further indicating that Hof’s breathing technique is effective in obtaining and maintaining a stable heart rate more quickly. However, based on the statistical analysis, this is not statistically significant. This trend observed, however, is an important observation seen in the data, and had the equipment in this experiment been more reliable and if more trials were run with a sample size larger than 50 people, this data could have been statistically significant. We conclude that while our data indicates that the breathing technique did successfully raise the duration an individual could maintain a wall-sit, further studies are needed to determine exactly which physiological changes give rise to this increase.