The secret for achieving your running personal best
Whatever type of running you enjoy be it marathon, triathlon or simply to improve your fitness, you want to run your best. Achieving your running personal best is a wonderful feeling.
It has been established that improvements to your pulmonary system can have dramatic effect on your running performance. The pulmonary system comprises of the lungs, the airways and the muscles that help us breathe.
Respiratory strength and your running personal best
Respiratory strength is very important to athletic performance. On land, as a runner progresses with their training they begin to fatigue their respiratory system. Production of metabolites (organic compounds created by the chemical reactions in the body) and neurologic signalling cause a shunt of blood from the periphery away from the working muscle. With this reduction of blood in the peripheral muscles, the rate of fatigue then increases quite dramatically.
This fatigue of the respiratory system can be modified greatly through exercise in deep water, which in turn contributes significantly to your running personal best.
Deep water running and the pulmonary system
When submersed in water, the hydrostatic pressure causes changes to the body. The increased pressure experienced by the body when underwater causes the chest cavity to contain more blood than usual. This means that breathing is harder work for the muscles, abdominals and quadratus lumborum. The diaphragm is moved upwards and the lungs cannot expand as much as they would on land. The effect of this is that a deeper inhalation is required to balance the air inside the lungs.
The muscles involved in respiration are required to work harder and therefore are strengthened by exercising in deep water which can potentially improve performance on land.
Your running personal best
The secret for achieving your running personal best is to workout in water. Exercising in water increases your respiratory strength. And results in less joint stress due to the water’s weightlessness. This in turn builds tremendous strength and endurance – the source of your running personal best.
To find out what exercising in water can do to help you improve the performance of your pulmonary system and in turn your running performance, come and try Deep Water Running at our Aqua Running Open Day on Saturday 16th January 2016. Register your interest by calling 02083306777 or emailing info@aqua-physio.co.uk