Putting the blowtorch on nose clips

The practice of restricting breathing through your nose during exercise in the hope of athletic improvement is questionable, according to research from Southern Cross University.

A long favoured practice in the combat sports, such as boxing and mixed martial arts, it seems this intuitive approach whereby a nose clip is used to restrict nasal breathing to increase the stress during training in preparation for competition does nothing to improve athletic performance.

Dr Rudi Meir, from the School of Health and Human Sciences, led the research and recently had a paper published in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.

“This research was an example of a current practice in athlete training driving research. I have been interested in this strategy for a while and as a strength and conditioning coach I have used this method while involved with professional Rugby Sevens teams,” Dr Meir said.

“However, it was simply an idea and so I needed to establish if this type of training actually had any acute effect on the athlete. That means, did breathing only through the mouth while exercising affect an athlete when considering the time it took to complete the exercise, heart rate, rate of perceived exertion, blood lactate and respiratory measures?”

To test the practice, Dr Meir investigated the effect on 10 male participants during high-intensity 20m shuttle runs. Participants were required to dive on the ground and complete a series of shuttles involving a rolling sequence and another series of shuttles while staying on their feet. Participants completed all shuttles with and without a nose clip. This required participants, Bachelor of Sport and Exercise Science students at SCU, to complete a total of four separate tests, each five to seven days apart.

“On the basis of the findings, we found that the use of restricted nasal breathing as a method of increasing the acute physiological training effect on athletes is questionable,” Dr Meir said.

“Strength and conditioning coaches and their athletes are always looking for ways to enhance performance. Combat sports use different strategies, like using a nose clip or snorkel during training. This strategy is used in the belief that restricting breathing would increase the physiological stress on the athlete and presumably produce a beneficial effect.

“The assumption being that by restricting the volume of air moved through either the nose or mouth it would result in a reduced arterial oxygen concentration and slow down the removal of CO2 and other metabolites produced during strenuous exercise.

“Such a theory might have some merit, however, as can be seen from the results of this study, the application of a nose clip to restrict nasal breathing during high-intensity short duration exercise had no statistically significant effect on any of the physiological measurements.

“However, I believe it is an area of sports training and conditioning that is worthy of further research.”

Photo: SCU student Rhenan Nealon tries out training with a nose clip.