Breathe-Run-Guide: A Review of Personal Breathing Guidance Systems in Running

Abstract

Endurance running’s popularity stems from its accessibility, but some people avoid it due to respiratory issues. Breathing monitoring using body area networks can help address these concerns by detecting breathing during exercise and offering real-time guiding feedback. This review outlines the challenges in developing body area networks and algorithms to enable intuitive real-time breathing guidance to enhance restful running experiences. Key findings are that existing breathing guidance systems’ feedback is mostly based on instructing breathing rates calculated on past observations. However, detecting instantaneous breathing phase and amplitude allows concurrent breathing guidance by triggering the manipulation of coinciding breathing phases, e.g. towards active prolonged exhales. Aspects of personal breathing guidance systems that are fundamental to create pleasant and restful running experiences are identified for further investigation in future research.