by Thomas Kurz
Look at the photo below and answer the following questions.
–What does it mean when an athlete does this? (“This means the athlete is fatigued” is not a good enough answer.)
–What would you advise?
(See comments below.)
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I would say the lady is out of breath, possibly gasping, light-headed, and/or fatigued. I would suggest standing straight up while taking slow, deep breaths in the nose, using the diaphragm, and out the mouth to get the breathing back to normal and get oxygen to brain. She looks like she stopped running suddenly and my idea would be to have her slow her pace, over about 5 minutes, down to a slow walk.
It is all true, but not good enough. Specifically, not enough understanding of functional anatomy to direct a rational endurance training. Try again.
It appears that she has low blood oxygen and so she is bending over which provides more room for her lungs to expand and increase her blood oxygen.
True but not specific enough as to the cause and no advice, which should be based on the specifics of the cause. So, not enough understanding of functional anatomy to direct a rational endurance training. Try again.
I would suggest that she lower her pace so that if she is running it is conversational which will increase her ability to run a longer distance or utilize walk breaks.
Close, but there is more to cardiovascular endurance training than just low-pace long-distance running. Also, the runner’s position is a specific sign that one should follow in dosage of endurance exercise.
it looks like the person has hit a threshold in the training where the ability to tolerate more work at the current effort level needs to adjusted down to move away from the level which would appear to be anaerobic
The young lady is not just fatigued, she is most likely exhausted from over training with inappropriate cardio workouts. Her current program needs to be stopped for a week of rest.When training is resumed, I would start with short sprints increasing the length, speed and workload as appropriate to the rate of progress achieved. Long slow cardio sessions are not necessary for most athletes.
In and of itself, one can conclude very little. The athlete has likely exercised at an intensity meeting or exceeding the respiratory compensation point, causing a rapid acceleration of breath rate. Whether this is appropriate or not for the athlete’s training goals depends on exactly what they are. The athlete may have been attempting to increase lactate threshold in which case this may be a relevant part of the overall training strategy. If fat loss or general cardiovascular health are the principal goals, than this intensity of exercise may be contra-indicated.
Nice question!
She has reversed the origin and insertion of her accessory muscles of respiration. This has been done by fixing her upper limb (hands against her legs now makes a closed chain). Given this fixing and the fact that her shoulder girdle is visibly elevated, she will be likely upper-lobe breathing.
I would suggest to her to walk tall and focus on full-lung breathing technique. Regards fatigue directly post work-bout, I would also work on other aspects of dynamic recovery including an assessment of her mental approach to recovery.
Other than this I really can’t say much about this image – it’s impossible to say if she has just finished a 400m rep, or has stopped after a hard hour run… or if she’s just posing for the photo shoot!
Kind regards,
Paul
She is adopting the “tripod” position, by bracing with her arms she is able to use accessory muscles of respiration, likely indicating she has just finished a run and is in oxygen debt, and was operating above the lactate threshold.
This may be appropriate for advanced athletes developing endurance occasionally, but usually I would expect them to keep walking at least as a form of active recovery, thus this picture suggests too intense endurance exercise for the pictured athlete.
I’m taking an anecdotal shot in the dark here, but I used to often adopt this position as a teen after particularly hard training in sports (basketball primarily). I found that the position relieved stress from the abdominals and low back area, so I’d suggest the position indicates weakness in one or both of those areas. I’d advise supplementary work on those muscle groups in addition to whatever training caused the fatigue.
Shannon,
Great observation! And useful advice.
Respiratory distress caused by vocal cord dysfunction (VCD). VCD commonly occurs in young females. symptons tend to include stridor, dyspnoea, inspiratory difficulty, throat tightness, and in some cases, a feeling of choking and cough.Could be physiological or psycological cause. Speech and relaxation therapy are usually the recommended treatment options
When I asked questions in this post I hoped for answers closely tying the sign (symptom) to the training advice (prescription). Many commenters are close and their advice is correct in general, but none used the sign itself to direct training. To see how to do it read Cardiovascular Endurance: Questions, Part II.