Introduction. It is known that hyperventilation causes impairment of standing balance, since fast and deep respiratory movements perturb vertical steadiness [1]. Its common knowledge, that athletes integrate sensory information much better than untrained people, so standing balance of athletes is more perfect [2]. Thus, it can be assumed that the influences of hyperventilation on their postural stability will be less. The aim of our work was to study the influence of voluntary hyperventilation on a standing balance of athletes. Methods. The subjects were divided into two groups: “Athletes” and “Control”. The “Athletes” group included 38 participants (19 females) aged 19.8±1.0 The control group consisted of 28 healthy volunteers aged 22.4±4.6 (18 females). At first the subjects stood quietly on the force platform (“Quiet breath”), than they breathed as deep and fast, as possible (“Hyperventilation”), duration of both trials was 20 seconds. The stabilographic parameters (the mean velocity (V, mm/s) and variance of the center of pressure displacement in medio-lateral (Qml, mm) and antero-posterior (Qap, mm) directions) were measured with a force platform “Stabilan” (“Ritm”, Russia). The ventilation was estimated indirectly by mean of a strain gauge [3], the ventilation index (Vent) was calculated as product of the respiratory amplitude and rate. Results. We found that Vent significantly increased in both groups during the “Hyperventilation” trial (8.4±4.5 vs. 102.5±41.8, p<0.001 in the “Control” group, 6.12±3.48 vs. 136.49±50.3, p<0.001 in the “Athletes” group). According to the ANOVA results elevation of Vent was more pronounced in the “Athletes” group (p=0.003), so the athletes breathed more deep and fast compared to the control subjects. Thus, obviously the perturbing effect of hyperventilation on the postural stability of the athletes was stronger. All stabilometric indices were also greater at the “Hyperventilation” trial in both groups (2,31±0,67 vs. 4,02±1,33 mm, p<0.001 2,11±0,81 vs. 3,98±1,35 mm p<0.001 for Qml; 3,02±1,09 vs. 6,17±2,00 mm, p<0.001, 2,7±0,82 vs. 6,55±2,40 mm p<0.001 for Qap; 8,51±2,28 vs. 25,45±11,12 mm/s group, 7,06±1,68 vs. 37,76±29,00 mm/s for V in the “Control” and “Athletes” groups respectively), hence hyperventilation leads to impairment of standing balance in all subjects. The ANOVA results showed that only an increase of V was more pronounced in athletes versus control subjects (p=0.02), other indices changed in the same way. So the steadiness in athletes was the same as in untrained subjects despite of more strong influence of the hyperventilation, but the strain of the postural control system was stronger in athletes [2]. Conclusions. The postural control system of the athletes compensated the exposure of hyperventilation more effectively, but through greater efforts.