wouldnt weights at the gym helping to strenghen core/ chest muscles help more?

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Doing hill sessions makes you a better person!

in all honesty I've no idea... To be honest I'd just thought, chest pain, breathing related, need to improve muscles associated with breathing... should perhaps look at a powerbreathe.

Whether there's any weight lifting exercises I can do etc to improve matters I don't know, but would love to hear if anyone knows of any

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i've got and used one for my cycling time trials, i used to use it whilst sitting in the car for a warm up.
i originally bought it after giving up smoking and entering a race and breathing like a dog, i threw the fags and bought one.

i also used it after i had had a bad chest and a bit of a lay off after a cold bug.

they are expensive for what they are but they do open up the airways and it could be that "if you think it's working, then it's working"

now i've got involved in this discussion i might dust it down and try it again myself.

so did you find yourself less out of breath whilst exercising? or your performance improving? or was it just a case of your breathing felt better immediately after you'd used it?

All the science behind it seems to make a lot of sense to me, but obviously that's the job of marketing any product, making you believe it could help you - once you've parted with your money then they're happy! Seems that across the net there's varied reviews, some for, a lot against (though usually from people who've not tried the product). Those in favour of the product are mostly people who are unfit, or suffer with asthma during their daily lives. I wish there was somewhere that could tell me genuinely whether this is likely to help oxygen uptake in a regular runner hoping to further improve performance...

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ignor me..

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Doing hill sessions makes you a better person!

i dont think that's very likely, how did you work that out?

i think it's far more likely to be due to not enough blood supply to your heart...

coronary arteries supply blood to your heart when it is diastole (i.e. when it is relaxed and not contracting)...

when your heart rate is raised, i.e. when running, there is significantly less time when your heart is relaxed so less time when it is perfused with blood...

you have to add to this that heart muscle has significantly higher demands for oxygen since it is beating faster and harder whilst running...

so basically there is less blood to heart muscle at a time when your heart has a higher demand and because of the lack of oxygen to the heart you get central chest pain on exertion, which is basically a mild form of what happens to someone in angina...

the body counteracts this chest pain by making you run slower in order for the metabolic demand on the heart to slow and the heart rate to slow (allowing more time the heart is at rest and therefore more time the heart muscle is perfused with blood)...

oxygen saturation in the arterial blood is always greater than 95% - ischeamic chest pain is not due to lack of breathing... we have numerous mechanisms the prevent exercise induced hypoxia so we dont die from running so please don't waste money on these gimic toys or the physiology lesson is wasted ...

Got the idea from..To be honest I'd thought it was something to do with my heart since the pain was slightly off center to the left - bang on where my heart is! I was looking around for something to explain the pain and that's the only thing I came across that sounded like what I suffer with - but cheers for your input!

Next question is though... how do I fix it?

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is it the intercostal muscles that are giving you greif?

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Doing hill sessions makes you a better person!

if you are just getting chest pain whlist doing speedwork and two miles in then i think this is normal... i certainly have had it before... i dont think you can be running 6 minute miles and less without some pain sometimes...

if you only have the pain whilst running when you take deep breaths or if you have the same muscle pain at rest... probably muscular, maybe intercostals...

if you have both then who knows... it is very difficult to diagnose yourself online, i wouldnt recommend it... i think it is worth seeing your GP just for reassurance if you are concerned...

I'm not really concerned by it... I accept it's because i'm pushing myself as hard as I can... though at the moment it's my limiting factor so I'm interested to know how I can improve in this area. As they say, a machine is only as strong as its weakest part

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