Oxygen saturation and recovery

[smokeyjones]

Greetings Mark,
I recently discovered Wim Hof and his breathing technique. Essentially, you hyperventilate in a controlled manner and then hold your breath until you gasp for air. You repeat this for a few cycles. The theory is that you slowly build up your ability to store more and more oxygen in your blood.
Roff

I seen a weird ass mother fucker who did something similar to this before inhaling a bowl once, reckoned it got him extra fucked. Managed to freak the fuck out of my flatmates grey hound but I'm unconvinced that it got the spastic higher.

[8odin8]

The total oxygen content of blood = (SaO2 x Hb x 1.34) + .003(PaO2)

Where

SaO2 = the % saturation of hemoglobin in arterial blood
Hb = the blood concentration of hemoglobin (g/dL)
PaO2 = the partial pressure of dissolved oxygen in arterial blood (mmHg)

Assuming you do not have certain disease states (e.g., chronic lung disease) and are not training at the top of Mt. Everest, your saturation should be normal (~100%) and cannot increase higher than that.

Your blood concentration of hemoglobin will not significantly increase by you holding your breath a few times. If you had a reason for chronic hypoxia or reduced inspiratory oxygen fraction (like COPD, sleep apnea, living at altitude, etc.) you might be able to increase your Hb over a long period of time (this represents a chronic adaptation to the stressor).

The partial pressure of oxygen you dissolve in blood is practically negligible (hence the 0.003 factor) and is not influenced by holding your breath.

What hyperventilation does do is transiently reduce the amount of dissolved CO2 in your blood, which transiently affects blood pH and might have some other implications in this situation. But you are not "training" your ability to store more oxygen in your blood by doing this.

Dr. Baraki, in your experience and knowledge, do you know of any successful methods of significantly increasing in the long term the saturation level of someone suffering from COPD that is caused by PCD, as is my case?

[dpinsen]

A friend who lifts does the Win Hof cold shower thing, but not the breathing stuff.

One thing that's helped me suck wind less after deadlifts is prowler work. My gym got one a few months ago, and an astroturf track for it. I load it up with my body weight and push it around after my press and bench workouts. Seems to have helped with snow shoveling endurance too.

[Crom]

I am no expert on this, but as stated above, I think it is all related to lowering CO2, not significantly increasing O2
I read about this and my friends and I used to use a similar breathing practice when trying to swim as far as possible underwater. You don't really have more oxygen, but you don't FEEL as oxygen-starved because you have less CO2. The mind starts screaming for oxygen (due to too much CO2) long before your real oxygen deprivation limit is reached.

[Mark Rippetoe]

One thing that's helped me suck wind less after deadlifts is prowler work.

Is there something wrong with breathing hard after a set of deadlifts?

[Jonathon Sullivan]

Is there something wrong with breathing hard after a set of deadlifts?

No. In fact, if you aren't, something is terribly wrong with (a) you, (b) the deadlifts, or (c) both.

Or...wait...was that one them REE-torical questions?

[Alexander Dargatz]

Is there something wrong with breathing hard after a set of deadlifts?

Thank you!
I was beginning to doubt myself... (not).
Conditioning is all well and good, but I would think the more conditioned and strong you are, the more you lift - and then you breathe as hard as you did when you lifted less in a weaker and less conditioned state.

[George Christiansen]

The mind starts screaming for oxygen (due to too much CO2) long before your real oxygen deprivation limit is reached.

I imagine that the change in this perception is behind the improvements people are claiming.

Even in the OP's case we have no objective metric to show that he could not have been using shorter rest periods all along in spite of not feeling ready after said shorter rest period.

There is also the distinct possibility that he simply adapted to shorter rest periods by...wait for it....cutting the rest periods.

Now if he just learned the breathing technique, then cut to shorter rest periods, and felt no difference in how ready he felt then I'd think it might be worth looking at. There could still be other causes, but otherwise I just assume it is either in your head or simply adapted to via the gradual change to shorter rest periods.

[Roff_Gibbons]

No. In fact, if you aren't, something is terribly wrong with (a) you, (b) the deadlifts, or (c) both.

Or...wait...was that one them REE-torical questions?

See you on the 18th. Can't wait. Make sure you ridicule me about this. My wife thinks I'm nuts and she'll get a good laugh.

[dpinsen]

Is there something wrong with breathing hard after a set of deadlifts?

I'm still breathing hard after a set of deadlifts, but I no longer need to drape myself over a bar in a squat rack while I'm catching my breath. I guess it's a matter of degree.