Swimmers, Watermelon Spitting, and Sleep Apnea

I don't think I have spit a watermelon seed for distance since I was 12, and I'm not sure I should be taking this post too seriously, but I'll respond to this part because I have also been curious: Do swimmers have a higher incidence of sleep apnea then then normal in the population? If so does all this holding of breath contribute? this seems more serious... I don't have sleep apnea, but I have recently discovered/noticed that I do an odd voluntary breath-holding thing very occasionally when I sleep. I noticed this when I started paying attention to what could be the trigger for a few bouts of atrial fibrillation that seem to always occur in the pre-dawn hours. I have no idea why I hold my breath occasionally when I sleep, but I have wondered whether it could be related to swimming.

I'm no medical doctor, though. I should probably get sleep tested. Yes, it is an easy test and most insurance companies cover it. You might be surprised..

It sounds to me like you exhibit a sign of sleep apnea. Why do you say you don't have it? That is what happens. Please take that seriously and get tested if you haven't.. I claimed it's not sleep apnea because it's voluntary breath holding, not an obstruction. Or at least as voluntary as it can be when I'm sleeping. It only happens very rarely, from what I can notice. But every once in a while (maybe once a month) I'll wake up and realize that I have been intentionally holding my breath. I don't have any of the other symptoms of sleep apnea (loud snoring, waking unrefreshed, daytime sleepiness, etc). I'm no medical doctor, though. I should probably get sleep tested.

I claimed it's not sleep apnea because it's voluntary breath holding, not an obstruction. Or at least as voluntary as it can be when I'm sleeping. It only happens very rarely, from what I can notice. But every once in a while (maybe once a month) I'll wake up and realize that I have been intentionally holding my breath. I don't have any of the other symptoms of sleep apnea (loud snoring, waking unrefreshed, daytime sleepiness, etc). I'm no medical doctor, though. I should probably get sleep tested. You should be sleep tested. No question. There is nothing "voluntary" going on while you are sleeping. Sounds like something I had. There was no "obstruction" to me breathing, I just wasn't taking a breath, far as I could tell. After 2 sleep studies (One cheap one--which led to tons and tons of more VERY involved tests--then finally a GOOD sleep study) which led to NO apnea diagnosed, but Upper Airway Restriction, fixed by a dental appliance.

I agree about getting tested via a sleep study if your insurance will pay for it. (Actually, very expensive if you have to pay out of pocket--in the neighborhood of $2,000 a night.) It's true that the Pickwickian Syndrome types--corpulent, loud snoring, turkey wattle necks, sleepy all the time, slightly befuddled--are more likely to have apnea. But you can have a normal BMI, thin neck, minimal snoring, etc. and still have the condition. It has to do with the anatomy of your airway and the muscle tone of the surrounding muscles that keep your airway open. Playing the digeridoo and doing special throat exercises can help bolster muscle tone a bit, at least this has been shown in small studies here and there. Also, if you lose a significant amount of weight, it can get rid of the condition. For a few, whose apnea is positional, i.e., only happens when you sleep on your back, you can sometimes find relief from the old home remedy of sewing a tennis ball into the back of a t-shirt. Anyhow, I just got diagnosed with apnea and am currently writing an article on the experience. I will keep you all posted on when it comes out. As far as lung capacity goes, whether the typical swimmer has greater vital capacity then the typical, say, basketball player or golfer is probably not that key to success in the sport. Perhaps the flotation effect would help, but the ability to inhale great volumes of air is sort of secondary to the cardiovascular system's ability to pick up Oxygen in the blood stream, circulate it to the skeletal muscles, where muscle cells then extract and use it and give off C02. In a way, big lungs with huge carrying capacity are like gigantic trucks. They don't do any good if the freight you are hauling can't be received and used. I think what makes a really good aerobic athlete, vis a vis VO2 Max (see Phil Whitten's interesting article in this month's Swimmer) is not so much the quantity of oxygen you can inhale but the quantity you can use. The trained muscles of top distance swimmers are superb at extracting loads of oxygen from the blood stream. I was told years ago when researching another article on training effects that there have been elite one-lunged Olympians, though I admit none immediately come to my mind. Anyhow, there are many things to take pride in and imagine they provide a swimming edge. But watermellon seed spitting distance probably has, at best, a specious connection to distance swimming. I, for one, am more likely to register negative watermellow spitting distance because of accidental inhalation of said missile. But Charlie, correct me if I am wrong, but I did beat you in the 2-mile swim, eh? I shall never, however, stand on the watermellon podium with the likes of you. In that sport, you are by far il miglior fabro. PS back to apnea for a moment. If you do have a very slow resting breathing rate, note that apneas are defined as cessation of breathing lasting 10 seconds or longer. I suspect that it's possible that in an extremely relaxed state, a superbly trained athlete might breath so slowly that he or she might be misdiagnosed with apnea. I told the sleep tech lady that my resting heart rate was pretty slow, that I once recorded it at 37 (it might have been lower, but I got so excited to think I could break a record that it started speeding up towards the end of the measured minute.) I am not sure if low heart rate correlates with low breathing rate, but I do know that the algorithms on the first CPAP machine I used were set for faster breathers than I am. If I didn't initiate a breath within 3 seconds or so of exhaling, it started blowing air at higher pressure to jump start a breath. Very annoying. I would start breathing, then the higher pressure would stop and switch to almost a suction effect. This was a Respironics machine for those of you who know about these things. I switched to a ResMed and the problem disappeared.

In a controlled environment, I would think technique, height, skill, mouth strength, and seed density/shape would probably be more significant on spitting ability than lung capacity. Nevertheless, 49.5' seems to be quite an accomplishment. Were these medium or large seeds? Oh, nooooo... the discussion about watermellon seed spitting technique. Where's Gary Hall Sr. when we need him!

I think what makes a really good aerobic athlete, vis a vis VO2 Max (see Phil Whitten's interesting article in this month's Swimmer) is not so much the quantity of oxygen you can inhale but the quantity you can use. The trained muscles of top distance swimmers are superb at extracting loads of oxygen from the blood stream. That's true -- the lungs, as we say, are "over-engineered" for exercise. In patients with normal lung volumes and airway function, the respiratory system is almost never the cause of limitation of aerobic exercise (VO2 max). The limitation will be in the heart and circulatory system's ability to deliver the oxygen and the muscle's ability to extract energy. There is some evidence that swimmers do have bigger lungs than other athletes: Br J Sports Med 1997; 31: 337-341 I'll quote briefly from the discussion: The results of this study support previous work indicating that lung volume is increased in young male and female swimmers compared with both sedentary subjects' ' and land based athletes.4 7-11 Indeed, our results show that female swimmers have absolute lung volumes similar to male land based athletes and sedentary control groups (tables 2 and 3). While land based athletes and sedentary control groups have "normal" values in relation to age, stature, and sex, both male and female swimmers have FEV,1 values about 11% higher than predicted values. These results are in agreement with previous studies that have measured lung volume in swimmers. 3-8 9-11 18 22 33-35 To whatextent the superior lung volume in swimmers isa consequence of training, and to what extent it may be due to natural endowment is equivocal. In swimming, the load of the water pressure against the chest wall and elevated airway resistance as the result of immersion could comprise a conditioning stimulus as well as the requirement that inspirations must occur rapidly from functional residual capacity during short intervals between strokes.'8 On the other hand, there is also support in the literature for a substantial contribution from genetic endowment to the enhanced lung function in swimmers. Baxter-Jones and Helms9 studied a sample of 231 highly trained male swimmers, gymnasts, and soccer and tennis players. Of the four sports, the swimmers had the highest initial lung volume in each of five age cohorts (8, 10, 12, 14, 16 years). Having controlled for factors such as age, stature, body mass, and training hours, multilevel regression analysis showed that the difference in lung size between the sports did not change with time. Ericksson et af3 have also noted that increased lung volume was already present in a group of 10 year old boys (n = 18) who had just begun swimming training. Furthermore, other studies were unable to detect lung volume increases in child swimmers after six or seven months of training.34 3 Because of the cross sectional nature of the present study, the results cannot exclude genetic endowment as a major determinant of the superior lung volume observed in elite swimmers. Zinman and Gaultier22 have suggested that to differentiate natural endowment from adaptive growth, it is necessary to examine the mechanical characteristics of the respiratory system of swimmers in more detail. Their work brings attention to the disproportionate development of air spaces in normal children, and this development has been noted to be even more pronounced as a result of adaptive growth in high altitude dwellers.36 Cotes37 points out that the increased lung volume observed in residents of high altitude may be the direct consequence of a combination of hypoxaemia and a high level of habitual physical activity during childhood rather than the stress of hypoxaemia alone. Documentation of a greater disproportionate development of air spaces in swimmers compared with controls would support the hypothesis that swimmers have larger lung volume as the result of adaptive growth rather than genetic endowment.22 I doubt that training makes a big impact on lung volume -- and probably not in adults but some people apparently disagree with that somewhat. When it comes to spitting watermelon seeds, I would bet that there are all kinds of technique issues that are more important than lung function. Probably you can send a video of yourself spitting seeds to some guy and he'll give you some pointers. Jim, it sounds like your respironics was set up in the timed mode when it should have been in "spontaneous" -- anyways glad you've got a set up that's working now.

Josh, thanks for your expertise here. If the link between swimming and lung size is real, and if (as you suggest) it's unlikely an effect of training, then it may be (as someone else earlier suggested) a cause--kids with slightly larger than normal lungs are more buoyant in the water and can swim a bit faster because of it and thus may be slightly more likely to take the sport seriously because of this positive reinforcement. The largest lung capacity I have ever personally witnessed was in a trombone player with the Minnesota Symphony. I am pretty sure he was a smoker, which no doubt reduced his air snarfing a bit, but it was still amazing. I witnessed this during a trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. We didn't have a bellows, so to get the campfire started each evening, four of us (three concert musicians and a token tone-deaf canoeist, me) would take turns blowing on the embers. The trombone player could blow at least three times longer than any of the other of us, and it wasn't because he was husbanding his stream of air better than us. He not only blew longer but he blew harder. (Sorry about all the blow references here; there is no hidden meaning intended.) Anyhow, smoking aside, if they ever make Avodart for the lungs, this guy won't need it. Did playing the trombone increase his lung capacity? Or did great lung capacity steer him towards playing the trombone? I vote for the latter.