Scientific Programme
Applied Sports Sciences
IS-AP06 - Breathing monitoring in sport and exercise: mechanisms, applications and technological solutions
Date: 04.07.2025, Time: 13:00 - 14:15, Session Room: Arengo
Description
Breathing monitoring has a long tradition in laboratory settings, but its importance in applied contexts remains overlooked. Today, we argue that several developments suggest that we should move breathing monitoring out into the field. First, technological innovation currently provides valid and accessible measures of ventilatory variables using wearables suitable for different sport-specific demands. Second, the importance of breathing monitoring during training and competition is supported by evidence showing that breathing frequency is more closely associated with physical effort than oxygen uptake, heart rate and blood lactate. Third, the importance of breathing monitoring is reinforced by our growing understanding of the mechanisms underlying ventilatory control during exercise. This is a fundamental topic that is regaining interest considering new experimental evidence suggesting that breathing frequency and tidal volume are largely modulated by different inputs during exercise. Hence, the opportunity to explore the topic of breathing monitoring from different perspectives is expected to offer an educational advantage to the sports science community. Potential benefits of moving breathing monitoring into practical settings include improved exercise testing, as well as better-informed prescription and monitoring across different sports, populations, and exercise conditions.
Chair(s)
Andrea Nicolò
University of Rome , Department of Movement, Human and Health Sciences
Italy
Speaker A
Stephen Seiler
University of Agder, Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences
Norway
Read CVECSS Rimini 2025: IS-AP06
Can measuring breathing during training improve the training monitoring process?
Athletes and coaches intuitively understand that breathing is a truth teller. They use expressions like “catching my second wind”, and “I felt him breathing down my neck” that reflect the sensitivity of athletes to both their own breathing during exercise and the breathing of their opponents as vital information revealing the state of the athlete and their intensity of effort. Breathing, along with heart rate (HR) are indeed vital signs. Historically, exercise ventilation measurements have been reserved for the laboratory, while heart rate has moved into the field as a standard physiological intensity proxy in training monitoring. But do heart rate and breathing frequency provide the same information about intensity, exertion, and effort, with the same adjustment scope and sensitivity? New wearable technologies that make valid and reliable ventilation measurement in general, and breathing frequency in particular, highly accessible in the field are providing unique insight into this fundamental question. Importantly, under field conditions, using wearables that allow normal ventilation, unconstrained by changes associated with the measurement process, data collected during training among professional cyclists demonstrate that: 1) the scope for ventilatory adjustment during high-intensity efforts exceeds the scope for HR adjustment, 2) breathing frequency continues to climb during high-intensity intermittent exercise at times when HR responses become quasi-stable and 3) maximum functional breathing frequency shows substantial individual variation and reproducible peak responses, in a manner similar to maximum heart rate. We argue that breathing frequency monitoring has been successfully translated to practical use in the field, providing unique information about the acute status of an athlete during exercise that is not captured by heart rate. Currently, systematic studies are ongoing with the goal of adding ventilation and breathing frequency to heart rate, blood lactate, and rating of perceived exertion to form a more complete and complementary assessment toolbox in daily training monitoring.
Speaker B
Andrea Nicolò
University of Rome , Department of Movement, Human and Health Sciences
Italy
Read CVECSS Rimini 2025: IS-AP06
A new model of breathing control during exercise
The correct interpretation of breathing data collected in the field requires an understanding of the different mechanisms involved in modulating breathing depth and frequency. Unlike tidal volume (VT), respiratory frequency (fR) is closely associated with perceived exertion and is sensitive to changes in exercise capacity in different protocols, experimental interventions, and populations. These observations stimulated our interest in investigating the mechanisms controlling breathing during exercise, ultimately culminating in the development of a simple yet effective model that explains how fR and VT are regulated. The main feature of this model is the differential control of fR and VT; fR is substantially modulated by central command (especially during high-intensity exercise) and muscle afferent feedback (especially during moderate exercise) whereas VT is mainly modulated by metabolic inputs. Furthermore, VT is fine-tuned based on fR levels to match alveolar ventilation with metabolic requirements in different exercise-intensity domains. This model has the potential to address mechanistic and practical issues that exercise scientists and practitioners commonly deal with. For instance, it suggests that the extra increase in ventilation observed during high-intensity incremental exercise may not be primarily driven by the progressive development of metabolic acidosis. Indeed, that increase in ventilation is mainly due to the non-linear increase in fR that can only to a minor extent be attributed to metabolic acidosis. Conversely, the magnitude of central command appears to contribute substantially to the fR response observed during incremental exercise. This example shows how our breathing control model can enhance the interpretation of breathing data collected during testing, training, and competitions. Hence, the target audience of this lecture is broad, encompassing: i) researchers interested in the mechanisms underlying ventilatory control and exercise tolerance; ii) scientists and practitioners seeking insight into the physiological rationale for monitoring breathing during exercise; and iii) any researcher or company focused on enhancing the interpretation of breathing data collected in the field.
Speaker C
Chiara Romano
Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Departmental Faculty of Engineering
Italy
Read CVECSS Rimini 2025: IS-AP06
Wearable sensors for breathing monitoring in the field: challenges and solutions
The ever-growing demand for measuring breathing variables during a variety of applications has favoured the development of different wearable sensors that can be effectively used during sporting activities and exercise. From a technological perspective, this is a fruitful area for research and development because there is an abundance of solutions that can be used for this purpose, especially for monitoring breathing frequency. Among these, two contact-based methods are attracting particular attention, i.e. the measurement of breathing-induced torso movements and the extraction of breathing frequency from cardiac signals such as electrocardiogram and photoplethysmogram. Different sensors are suitable for measuring torso movements, including strain sensors that can be integrated into clothes used for training and competition. On the other hand, the extraction of breathing frequency from cardiac signals does not require the use of additional sensors beyond those already used for heart rate monitoring. However, the suitability of the latter solution may be challenged by motion artefacts, that are sport specific. This talk will provide a state-of-the-art overview of the commercial wearable sensors that can be used in the field for monitoring breathing in different sports disciplines, with a specific focus on soccer and cycling. It will be outlined that it is essential to develop wearable sensors and related algorithms that face the specific challenges offered by different sports settings. The lecture will show how the currently available technological solutions are ready to meet the demands of the field of sport and exercise. The target audience of this lecture includes: i) researchers and practitioners interested in using available techniques to monitor breathing during sport and exercise; and ii) any researcher or company interested in developing or testing wearables specifically designed for sporting activities.