PowerShield Helps Bruno Breathe More Easily

Did you know that an elite athlete can inhale around 160-190 litres of air per minute even at very high altitudes and by high, we mean 8,000 metres?

The danger is that processing that volume of very cold and very dry air brings on a high risk of both dehydration and hypothermia which, in turn, has implications for both performance and personal safety.

A new PowerShield mask - right - produced by Polartec with the Federation for Sport at Altitude and the Polytechnic of Turin aims to limit both dehydration and chilling by recovering heat generated by physical effort and using it to warm and humidify the air drawn into the respiratory tract.

According to Polartec, testing by Italian 'Skyrunner' - high-altitude racer to you and me - Bruno Brunod on Everest produced 'excellent results' which will be researched further later in the year. Obviously if you're using supplemental oxygen then all bets are off - and you're cheating anyway. I mean, if I can do Snowdon without oxygen... ;-)

PowerShield was chosen for its combination of warmth, lightness and breathability. It's one of our favourite fabrics, being 98 per-cent windproof. The missing 2 per-cent of proofing means that the fabric offers appreciably better moisture vapour permeability (or what gear testers usually refer to as 'breathability), allowing moisture generated by exertion to escape more easily.

For more technical details of Polartec fabrics see www.polartec.com