Episode 20 - Dr James Hull

This episode is all about breathing – something we know is important, but normally don’t think about. Dr James is a Respiratory Physician & lung doctor at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London and also a specialist sports respiratory clinician at the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health , at University College London.

James is a Doctor Doctor! A medical doctor who went back to University for a PhD in vascular aspects of exercise physiology. His main job now is evaluating ‘unexplained’ exertional breathlessness but also trying to work out why athletes get coughs and wheeze during sport. He promotes awareness of a condition called exercise induced laryngeal obstruction (EILO) which is very common (5% of all adolescence / young athletes) and yet completely misdiagnosed as asthma.

In elite sport James is a specialist advisor to the English Institute of Sport – working to optimise the respiratory health of Team GB athletes; trying and reduce risk of infections and asthma problems as well as on a panel of experts advising the International Olympic Committee on respiratory health in athletes and COVID.

Dr James Hull BSc MBBS PhD FRCP FHEA FACSM

Twitter: @Breathe_to_win

Web: www.breathetowin.co.uk

Welcome to the first series of the Endurance podcast with myself Mark Beaumont. I’m joined on many of the episodes by my friend and performance manager Laura Penhaul.

We started recording these conversations as a research project for my new book, also called ‘Endurance’ & published by Global Cycling Network – so you can find many of these conversations written up in the ‘Wise Words’ sections of the book. The Endurance podcast is focussed on meeting the sports scientists, the support staff, the researchers, the entrepreneurs – the people you will rarely have heard of - but who are the experts at supporting endurance athletes and are at the forefront of endurance sports.

I started my endurance journey 25 years ago as a 12-year-old boy cycling across Scotland, and I recently pedalled around the planet at the pace of 240 mile a day. Laura has been a physiotherapist at 4 Paralympic & Olympic Games, led the first female crew to row the Pacific Ocean and lead my Performance team for the ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ race.

Young or old, female or male – I believe that endurance is the greater leveller in sport. I’m fascinated by the mental, physical and logistics skills that it takes to push endurance.

We are all endurance athletes at heart – we can all go further.

• No. of episodes: 21
• Latest episode: 2021-02-11
• Sports

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