A spirometry test is used to measure lung capacity and function.
As Dive Safety Officer for Washington State University in Vancouver, I have had to refer students to take this test, but never had to actually do it myself! I remember one student commenting about how she HATES that test - and I was thinking, what's so hard about blowing into a tube?
I arrived at the Doc's and they weighed and measured my height. Then combined with my age, calcuated a baseline of what my lung capacity should be.
The tester guy put me in this little glass booth, similar to a phone booth, that has a 1" plastic mouthpiece sticking in front of me, into which I should breathe. He put a little clip on my nose so no air would escape through there during the testing. The mouthpiece was rigged up to plastic tubing which then goes into the testing machine and is hooked up to his computer.
He asks me if I smoke (no) or if I EVER smoked (no) or if I have asthma (no).
I was instructed to breathe normally (yeah right) and then take a HUGE breath, one that fills my lungs completely. When given the signal, I am to exhale as quickly and hard as I possibly can, emptying my lungs rapidly. It doesn't end there - I then have to continue exhaling and squeezing out every teensy morsal of air....until he says, OK INHALE!!! At which point I had to inhale as rapidly and completely refill my lungs again. Then hold it, until given the signal from him.
WHEW!!!
After the first time, he comes over to me and patiently says, not bad for a first try! (I'm thinking...I have to do this AGAIN???) Yup, he said, you'll get better results after doing it a few times. This was warmup!
So, I do it again...this time when squeezing all the air out of my lungs, I'm thinking....oh man, this is HARD! And, I got to do it a THIRD time - but thankfully that was the last one. At this point my muscles in my tummy and chest were starting to ache a bit! And my throat felt a bit raspy from all the rapid inhales and exhales.
He swivels the computer monitor around to me, and says, so here's your results. You did BETTER than 100% on every single trial! Not only that, he says, you had results typical of what we see in highly trained ATHLETES!
I looked at him sideways and started laughing...those of you who have seen me know I'm overweight and not exactly in tip-top shape!
So, I started thinking about it, and figured as a regular scuba diver, perhaps all the breath control, and HOW we breathe underwater has contributed to this athletic-lung stuff. As I was diving on Saturday I paid a bit more attention to my breathing, and thought...wow, yes, I really do use full lungs and practice a lot of control when diving.
So do you guys think as divers this puts you ahead in lung function? Do you notice yourself breathing differently underwater?
- Janna (athletic-lung-woman)
I just show them the way back to the boat and wave them off to the surface 
Then finish the dive or go up w/them....
