High ventilatory capacity is essential for sports such as rowing or cycling. Maximal inspiratory and expiratory pressures can describe respiratory muscle strength. Portable devices are available to measure those maximal pressures, but it can be highly dependent on participant effort.

Aims: 

To find out whether maximal inspiratory pressure (MIP) correlates with different flow-volume loop parameters in a group of college level rowers and to compare the data from athletes with reference values.

Methods: 

We studied 19–33 year-old rowers (n=14, two of them female) with mean (range) height 187 (173–202) cm. Spirometry was performed to determine forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), peak expiratory and inspiratory flows (PEF and PIF). Measurement of MIP was performed with a hand-held mouth pressure meter. All measured values were compared with reference data and correlations between MIP, lung function and anthropometric indices were determined.

Results: 

Measured values of FVC and FEV1 were mostly above average when compared to reference population (97–130% of predicted), whereas PEF ranged from 85 to 120% pred. All 3 indices describing forced expiration correlated with height (p<0.01). When using MIP references depending on age only, we obtained values in a range of 88–212% pred (absolute values 98–234 cm H2O). The only significant positive correlation was found between MIP and PIF (p<0.05).

Conclusion: 

High lung volumes and flows compared to the predicted values from untrained persons indicate the increased functional capacity of respiratory system in studied rowers. We found a wide between-individual variability of MIP in healthy young subjects. MIP values did correlate with neither anthropometric nor spirometric indices (except for PIF).