[wes]

Kurt,

I have been doing many static tables with HRM under pretty controlled conditions and based on that here is my take on your breatheup. I think Trux is right, it is hyperventillating as it is breathing more than you normally would so lowering your CO2 (which has pluses and minuses for static as mentioned in the thread, everyone agrees you don't want to do it alot anyway). As to how it serves you, I do think that getting a very full exchange of fresh air is beneficial just before the last inhale in a static. The problem is that if you breathe very fully with stomach, chest and upper rib cage then you use lots of muscles and raise your heart rate. The thing that I do after wrestling with these issues is to do a type of breathing that is very slow like Trux describes though that uses only my lower belly muscles and on the last 2-3 breaths before the last inhale I do "purge" breathes with this technique though only engaging the very lowest belly muscles while keeping the middle and lower chest flat or at minimal volume. This lower volume of the middle and lower chest allows the air sucked into the lungs by the belly breathing to mix very deeply into the lungs and then full belly exhale and do this 2-3 times to purge and get all fresh air for final inhale. This would be kind of like hyperventillating though by not using the middle or upper chest muscles you are not taking a full breath, maybe only 40% or 50% of a breath so has less affect on purging C02. So end result is fresh air with a lower increase of heart rate (for me anyway). Don't know if this is true for everyone or is ultimate answer though something to play with - Cheers Wes