Yawning While Exercising?

Now, several times long ago I felt like strangling my grandson for yawning as I was talking to him between exercises up in The MOTION Lab. I mean, that's a little rude, don't you think? (A few other students have done similarly while up in the Lab.) On the flip side of that, Anthony Chic is far from a rude young guy. Naw, Tony C and the others are pretty polite kids, which caused me to think there might be something else at play here. Actually, a conversation with a hockey parent recently shed at least a glimmer of light on the subject, with that parent suggesting that yawns are my players' way of catching-up with a momentary shortage of oxygen. Hmmmmm... Now, I have yet to find anything really definitive on the subject. However, I have traveled quite a bit through cyberspace in search of answers... - A number of sites obviously took the safe route, just suggesting to visitors that a frequent yawner ought to seek medical advice. Okay, I can buy that -- being safe, I mean. At the same time I have found a couple of people who seem to agree with the aforementioned hockey parent. - As I found offered on the Prevention.com site:

"Some experts believe that a yawn is your body's way of gearing up for energetic or difficult activity. Physiologically, yawning boosts your blood pressure and your heart rate. It's well documented that Olympic athletes often yawn before competition and paratroopers yawn before a jump."

Then, I discovered the following in the forum within the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association™ Community website:

"...About your yawning while exercising, try taking deep breaths while peddling away on the bike. Obviously you are using up more oxygen than you are currently breathing in, causing you to yawn and take a deep breath. Researchers have found that most people who yawn at the end of the day have triggered that response by slowing down their breathing in preparation for sleep. Your body does not use as much oxygen when sleeping, so your breathing becomes slower and shallower. However, if you are still awake and your blood oxygen level drops, your body tries to adjust it by causing you to yawn..."

By the way... As I did my brief Internet study, I discovered that my grandson and a few Lab students aren't the only ones who tend to yawn as they exercise. No, Google listed 552,000 links in answer to my "yawning while exercising" query. So, quite evidently it's pretty common. Finally, as a sidebar... While I joked at the opening -- about wanting to strangle Anthony, I never did say a word to him. My method of dealing with it (or not dealing with it) doesn't point to any genius on my part. I just wasn't sure about the cause so I decided to leave things alone and just concern myself with the real work at hand (like helping him get stronger, faster, whatever). You might say I got lucky in that regard. So might member parents and coaches get lucky if they save their first impressions about a player until a little bit more is known about a given observation.