There’s a lot of talk about breath work but like most things in the social media world, very few people are actually learning about it, they’re simply getting drawn in by hype videos and what looks cool.
It’s almost funny that with all the so-called progressions in health and fitness, we are having to tell people that breathing properly is important.
It’s even funnier that people are wowed when they learn to do so and feel better!
“What is this black magic spell you have put on me?! I feel so much better”
Strangely, if you drink enough water you also feel better. Crazy, groundbreaking voodoo knowledge…
As a starting point, the first thing is realising that you have a breathing issue in the first place which many people don’t think applies to them because they’re still walking and talking and not dead.
It’s like thinking there’s nothing wrong with your car because it’s drivable, despite seven warning lights flashing at you every time you use it.
The link between breathing and physical performance goes well beyond the obvious increase in lung demand when you do intense exercise.
It can be the handbrake on so many things in your life including:
- Poor mitochondrial (cellular) function leading to reduced fat burning at rest and during low intensity exercise
- Cognitive function (how well your brain operates on mental tasks)
- Concentration
- How fast you move through training intensity zones (Zones 1-5 on your heart rate monitor) meaning you hit the ‘pain’ zone faster, utilise carbohydrate stores faster and reach failure faster
- Your V02max which not only determines top end performance in many sports but is also the key indicator of longevity according to the American Heart Association. In plain English, all else equal, statistically speaking, you will die sooner than you have to
- Blood pH which, when acidic can lead to further increases in breathing rate due to chemical responses in an attempt to dump carbon dioxide faster
- Dizziness when doing activities forcing reduced exercise time and/or performance
- Interplay between diseases and carbon dioxide levels with reciprocal ‘aggravation’
- Muscle tension, particularly around the chest and neck due to shallower breath and an increased breathing rate in an effort to haul more oxygen and more carbon dioxide out
The list goes on and on and there are many complex interactions between your respiratory, cardiovascular and metabolic systems all starting with the depth and quality of your breathing.
Breathing issues can go in two directions: Respiratory acidosis and respiratory alkalosis
Acidosis happens due to hypOventilation and excessive shallow breathing meaning you’re not expelling carbon dioxide. This causes a drop in blood pH and that horrible feeling you’ve probably experienced when you reach a certain level of exercise intensity.
Alkalosis happens due to hypERventilation and excessive deep breathing. This often happens when people have a panic attack. It’s why they’re often given a paper bag – the bag helps return some carbon dioxide and balance things out again.
A person may swing from one extreme to the other in an attempt to balance their internal chemistry.
So what can we do about it?
The first step is to understand the cycle that frequently occurs:
- Something raises CO2 levels (usually disease, chronic shallow breathing or an acute response to high intensity exercise)
- Blood pH decreases
- Chemoreceptors in the body sense the increase and the brain stimulates increased rate and depth of breathing
- CO2 levels are reduced
- Normal CO2 levels, blood pH and breathing rates are re-established
The ideal situation is to have a deep, relaxed, nasal based breathing pattern at rest so this cycle only occurs when we purposefully challenge our respiratory, cardiovascular and metabolic systems with intense exercise.
In order to do this, we need to take action to ensure we aren’t in a chronic state of stress and shallow/rapid breathing.
In this case, you’ll find yourself always short of breath on the simplest of tasks and unable to reach higher levels of exercise intensity because you panic breathe, go dizzy or experience painful levels of muscle tension before you’ve really done anything.
- Deal with your causes of stress. I know it’s difficult. That doesn’t make it any less necessary…
- Take time to perform slow, deep nasal breathing for a few minutes at a time throughout the day. There are many ways to do this but 5 minutes of box breathing is a great place to start. Lie down or sit comfortably. Inhale through your nose over 4 seconds, hold the breath for 4 seconds, exhale over 4 seconds, hold the breath for 4 seconds. Keep repeating. If 4 seconds is too much start with 2-2-2-2 and build up, simply focus on controlling your breath and deepening it.
- Alter your nutrition and activities to eradicate or greatly reduce modern lifestyle-based diseases which can raise C02 levels in your body
- Warm up properly when exercising so that your body has a chance to activate the ‘low intensity performance’ systems based around aerobic respiration and fuelling
- Work on rib mobility to allow better rib cage expansion
- Reduce your carbohydrate and sugar-intake if all of your meals are predominantly carbohydrates and train your body to use the low intensity oxygen/fat system for fuel
- Perform more Heart Rate Zone 2 work to improve mitochondrial function and cellular respiration. This can apply to very fit athletes as well as sedentary people because many fitness fans do most of their training in Zone 4. They have excellent high end performance but very little breath control at lower intensities.
Those are great places to start in regaining control of your breathing and all the systems that rely on it functioning properly.
I highly recommend coming to Storm Force Fitness if you’re in Guernsey where we can perform a Metabolic Test which includes a range of breathing markers to find out where you breathing issues are tripping you up and which solution is likely to be much more effective.
Everyone is different and guesswork just prolongs the problems or at best, keeps you from achieving your true performance potential.
