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Improve your Breathing
Techniques to improve your breathing.
By Bernard L. Gladieux Jr.
Breathing is something that most people take for granted, something most of us do without thinking, roughly 25,000 times a day on the average. That’s a pretty rapid respiratory rate according to some physiologists and is about how fast you would breathe in a fright response. It is not very efficient.
For the endurance athlete, efficient respiration is the foundation of efficient performance. Hence if you improve your breathing, you should also improve your ability to perform under the stress of training and competing. Improved breathing techniques benefit the endurance athlete as well as the non-athlete.
Think of your breathing apparatus as a great bellows with the diaphragm stretched out under your balloon like lungs. When your diaphragm stretches and drops, it creates a partial vacuum in your chest, and your lungs inflate with vital, oxygen-filled air. When your diaphragm contracts, it pushes up and expels carbon dioxide – air from which you have drawn what you need to function.
Here are some observations and techniques that you can employ to strengthen your breathing and to improve its efficiency.
- First, learn to belly breathe. Breathe in by relaxing your belly muscles, not by throwing your head back and lifting your shoulders and entire ribcage. Breathe out by contracting your abdominal muscles. Lie down without any distractions and concentrate on this way of breathing. Belly breath all the time whether you are actively exercising or not.
- Focus on slowing down your breathing. Breathe in for 4 seconds; breathe out for 8 seconds or longer. When you think about it, take the last couple of seconds of your exhalation to push the last bit of air out. Maintain this tempo and the one to two in-out ratio routinely.
- When you are exerting yourself, as in weight training, breathe in just before the effort and breathe out during the effort.
- Use this exercise daily: Sit on the edge of a chair. Belly breathe in through the nostrils for a count of four, out for a count of eight or longer. On the out breath, tuck the muscles of the butt and rock the pelvis forward; on the in breath, lean the upper body forward. In addition to improving your breathing this one is an excellent exercise for low back pain.
- A more vigorous variation: In the same position, breathe in and out explosively through the nostrils like a steam engine. Keep a tissue handy! If it makes you feel faint, slow down and breathe into a paper bag for a minute until it passes. Concentrate on stretching your diaphragm.
- When you are running, biking, swimming or whatever, try to maintain the same relationship between the time it takes you to breathe in and the time it takes you to breathe out. Breathing out should take twice as long per breath as breathing in.
- In competing and in general, if you think about breathing at all, think about the exhalation phase of the cycle. Think about contracting the large muscle of the diaphragm that will force out the old used air. Breathing in should be a shorter, almost effortless action.
- When you are anaerobic, think through how you are breathing, exhale consciously and deliberately. Get your breathing under control.
- Avoid places and situations where the air quality is poor. Stay away from smokers and other places where you’ll pull toxic exhaust fumes into your lungs
In Good Health
Bernard L. Gladieux Jr.
President, The Pressure Positive Co.
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