From my research, I have found that respiration is a key factor to how a person’s body subconsciously reacts to exercise. As the intensity of a given exercise increases, a human will naturally begin to breathe harder to supply more oxygen through the blood to their muscles. My hope for my study is to test my subjects at different levels of aerobic difficulty to see how their bodies react.

In the UNLV study, Oral versus Nasal Breathing during Moderate to High Intensity Submaximal Aerobic Exercise conducted by graduate student, Chase O. LaComb, the study’s purpose was to “determine breathing efficiency during increasing levels of submaximal aerobic exercise”. It was determined that at the highest interval, nasally breathing had a much higher VO₂Max than orally.

Because of the similarities in purpose of my study and the UNLV study, I have chosen this research paper as a base for my project. I reached out to the corresponding author and examined his procedures in depth to coordinate it with my study.

For my project I will attempt to examine the difference in Maximum Oxygen production between nasal and oral breathing during aerobic exercise. The reason that this interests me is because of my fascination towards all types of athletic performance. Through my extensive research, I hypothesize that nasal breathing will result in a higher VO₂Max. For the next couple weeks, I plan on beginning my data collection. I will be conducting my experiment with a PNOE mask. The mask is pictured to the left. My hope is that I will have collected all of my data by mid-March.

For my project, I expect to see a trend with an average of a greater VO₂Max in nasally breathing compared to oral breathing. My overall hope for my project is to be able to prove to all athletes that nasally breathing is able to produce more oxygen when performing aerobic exercise. Although this won’t be considered originally research, I hope to add more data and knowledge to this topic.

For me, this project presents an opportunity to learn more about how I can personally increase my athletic performance. I am expecting to gather results that support my hypothesis that nasally breathing is more optimal in producing a greater VO₂Max. Hopefully with my results, I can share my knowledge with my peers and classmates to increase wider spread knowledge that nasally breathing is healthier and more efficient than orally breathing.