Diaphragmatic Breathing for Fencing: Is it Worth it?

Breathing is important for any sport. Because of the mask, fencers often complain of difficult progressive breathing during matches. In addition, during a fencing bout, the athletes have a few times to rest, during which they have to recover both concentration and breathing. We hypothesized that good breath control during the recovery time from an assault through diaphragmatic breathing might be of help. Eight (1 female) elite professional senior épée fencers (i.e.: qualified for the Fencing World Cup) were recruited for this pilot study. Four (DIA+) were trained to adopt diaphragmatic breathing during recovery and four were naïve to diaphragmatic breathing (CTR). The two groups were similar in age (27.3 vs 26.3 years; p=0.510), height (182.5 vs 183.5 cm, p=0.756) and weight (79.6 vs 79.5 kg; p=0.438). Nine minutes' assault was simulated. The 1-minute break occurring between the three-minute intervals of fencing footwork and the 15 seconds stop called by the referee were recorded through opto- electronic plethysmography. At baseline, the ventilatory pattern was similar between the two groups, while during recovery DIA+ tended to breathe with lower ventilation, and lower tidal volume and seemed to perceive lower dyspnoea. The results of this pilot study seem to encourage elite fencers to try to recruit the diaphragm during their recovery breathing. If confirmed in larger future studies, this breathing strategy seems to be associated with lower ventilation and lower exertional dyspnoea. Saving ventilatory reservoirs and reducing laboured breathing can have important beneficial implications for their performance.