Mouthpieces should be banned from races

All you need is a VHS tape of the 1988 Seoul marathon.

Shorter and Charlie spend a few minutes focused on Juma Ikangaa and his relaxed face. Watch the segment, visualize, duplicate, repeat.

dukerdog wrote:

only me wrote:

This 10% saving may or may not have a substantial effect, but that is the argument being presented by the manufacturers of the mouthpiece, which is significantly different to your point.

That 10% is your made-up number. Neither of the manufacturers mention that number, or any number.

There is also nothing on their websites or any research that I've seen that shows any benefit for people who do not clench their teeth. How exactly would this thing work for people who have their mouths open? I don't know about you, but when I race I have my mouth open and my teeth apart.

He already acknowledged that it was a made up number. He was just trying to illustrate a point. Try reading before you criticize.

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You will also need a VHS machine.

your mother wrote:

He already acknowledged that it was a made up number. He was just trying to illustrate a point. Try reading before you criticize.

Really? Please show me where in his post he acknowledged that 10% was something he made up.

your mother wrote:

He already acknowledged that it was a made up number. He was just trying to illustrate a point. Try reading before you criticize.

Come on "your mother" show me! Where is it he said 10% was a made-up number? Here, I'll make it easy for you.

only me wrote:

I don't know if these mouthpieces work or not, but I think you, and several other posters are missing the point.

If these mouthpieces reduce the metabolic cost of obtaining the oxygen, freeing up more ENERGY for running, then that would be a performance enhancement.

The argument in favour of the mouthpieces is not that they increase the AMOUNT of oxygen you can take in, which, as you argue is already sufficient, but that they REDUCE the energy cost of taking in the oxygen.

Think of it like this, in a 5k race, the energy spent in the mechanical act of breathing = x; if you wear the mouthpiece then the energy cost of breathing = x-10%.

This 10% saving may or may not have a substantial effect, but that is the argument being presented by the manufacturers of the mouthpiece, which is significantly different to your point.

Until the claimed energy saving is evaluated it is difficult to argue one way or the other, but it might help to actually argue against the manufacturer's claims, rather than a straw man of your own choosing.

As long as it doesn't adversely affect your health, I don't care about the mouthpieces, but I suspect there is a placebo effect at work here. Hard to put together a control for this sort of thing.

Out.

There is no way that this affects running performance. Believe it or not, more oxygen flowing into your lungs isn't going to make you run faster. For a given heart rate, blood is flowing through the alveoli in your lungs at a certain rate, and oxygen is diffusing into the blood due to the difference in partial pressure. At least at sea level, your blood leaves your lungs at least 97% saturated with oxygen. Even if you doubled the volume of your lungs (or doubled the rate at which oxygen was flowing in and out) it wouldn't affect the arterial saturation one bit, because it depends on the partial pressure of oxygen only. Ten liters of air at 1 atm (sea level pressure) has the same partial pressure as twenty liters of air at the same pressure.

The only way to increase athletic performance via the air you are breathing is to modify the partial pressure of oxygen in the air. If it goes up, performance goes up (though not much vs. sea level, because the law of diminishing returns applies when you try to saturate that last 3%). Now, if it goes down (which is what is happening when you go to high altitude) your blood goes through your lungs so fast and the oxygen pressure gradient is so low that the blood leaves without being fully saturated. And thus, you run slower.

It is silly to worry about these, and this is typical NYT "crap science" writing. No mention of the fact that more air will not increase your athletic ability--instead, just vague claims that "jaw relaxation" can, apparently, make a 4:30 marathoner into a 3:30 marathoner. What's next, arm casts for "chest relaxation"?

koolkat wrote:

But you are missing the point. You breathe hard when running a mile, not because you need more oxygen, but because you need to get rid of the CO2, which is a by-product of the acid buffering.

Also not a problem. CO2 is a by-product of aerobic respiration, NOT anaerobic respiration. There is a slight possibility some of the carbonic acid in your blood (a buffering agent, not a biproduct of anything) could dissociate into CO2 and H20, but that would be many orders of magnitude smaller than the CO2 generated by aerobic respiration.

Acidosis can occur from not breathing deeply enough, but this happens in medical settings, not athletic ones. It's called "respiratory acidosis," and despite the similarity in name, has nothing to do with metabolic acidosis, which is what happens during anaerobic exercise. The pH of your blood drops during a race or workout because there isn't sufficient oxygen to "mop up" the protons generated by cleaving the bonds in glycogen. When you go out for an easy run, you are cleaving glycogen left and right, but you have plenty of oxygen to "mop up" the H+ and use it to reform ATP. But in a 5k, you don't have enough oxygen around, and the H+ builds up. At first, it is buffered in the blood, but as these systems are overwhelmed, your blood pH rises and acidosis sets in. The acidic conditions eventually interfere with ion pumps in your muscles, and you slow down.

sorry that should have said "NOT acid buffering."

Anaerobic respiration doesn't generate CO2 immediately, but when lactate is broken down, it eventually does.

Sorry for confusing you dukerdog, but I'm used to having conversations with adults.

When I say in a post: "Think of it like this ...", I assume that it is taken as read that this is an illustration, nothing more. Had I said "The manufacturers claim ..." then you might have a point.

As I say, I understand now that I am dealing with an idiot, and the next time I post a response where I use figues to ILLUSTRATE my point I will put a caveat at the bottom of the post. Would this be sufficient:

"FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE HARD-OF-THINKING, THE FOREGOING FIGURES ARE ILLUSTRATIVE ONLY. IF YOU ARE TOO STUPID TO REALISE THIS, PLEASE, MOVE AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD AND KEEP YOUR IDIOCY TO YOURSELF, MORON."

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