Every week there seems to be a new hype in fitness, a new flavour-of-month touted by fitness influencers that inevitably falls short under the inescapable spotlight of durability.
Excellent use of the breath is not one of those things despite ‘breathwork’ being one of the new kinds on the social media block. Breath like sleep has been around a while through many iterations of evolution so it’s probably quite a useful thing to get right if you want a body that looks, feels and works better.
Methods that have universally stood the test of time as ‘life changers’ can be counted on your fingers:
- Weight training for strength and muscle growth
- Cardiovascular work to increase VO2max
- Maintenance of excellent joint range of motion
- Sleep
- Hydration
- Nutritious, natural food
- Enough fibre to maintain a functional digestive system
- Calorie control and high protein intake
- Supportive and motivational personal environments
That’s nine of my Big Ten.
The tenth and by no means least important is development of a strong oxygen delivery system. Whole books and courses have been written on the subject but my goal is to simply leave you in no doubt that breath work could be the ‘magic pill’ you’ve been looking for.
Such pills don’t exist of course but if we’re looking for something that is free, doable anywhere, open to all and delivers both instant effects and permanent improvements in physical wellbeing and performance, developing good breathing patterns is it.
It will improve everything from objective health and fitness metrics such as blood pressure and running ability to subjective feelings of wellbeing and control of the personal situations you face. It can also be the key to rapid improvements in athletic performance.
WHAT IS GOOD BREATHING?
It’s easy to assume that you must breathe properly or you would have died a long time ago.
The reality is, mainly due to the fact that most people live in chronic states of stress, the average person breathes through their mouth in a ‘short and shallow’ pattern. You’re obviously doing enough to stay alive but could be a long, long way from reaching your potential in both mental tasks at work and the physical challenges you wish to excel in.
Functional breathing positively affects your biochemistry and biomechanics. Ultimately, how you feel and move at a variety of intensities will be impacted more than you could ever imagine.
The point of breathing is to avoid two things: Hypoxia and Hypercapnia
In English, this means avoiding low oxygen levels and high carbon dioxide levels. Like Goldilocks, we want things to be ‘just right’ as much as possible around necessary and positive fluctuations when we put certain physical demands on our body.
On a minute-by-minute, go-about-your-day level, functional breathing should be light, directed through your nose (nasal breathing) into the bottom of your lungs and at a slow ‘cadence’ of 6-12 breaths per minute at rest.
Nasal breathing causes a natural increase in CO2 in the blood which might sound like something you want. Actually, by training our body to tolerate and respond to higher CO2 levels results in release of more oxygen from the haemoglobin in our blood resulting in many benefits detailed below.
The structure of the nose is such that it also acts as an air cleanser, filtering out the may microbes that can enter our system and cause sickness that has become more and more common place in modern life.
The mouth serves no such purpose and so every breath through the mouth instead of the nose is a less effective one. Given that you are constantly breathing, it doesn’t take a medical professional or sports scientist to figure out that this dramatically increases your risk of illness.
‘Light, low and slow’
Light through the nose. Deep volume using the diaphragm sent into the lower lungs where higher blood concentration means more oxygen is absorbed. Slow cadence to keep us in a relaxed state.
That’s optimal breathing method in a nutshell.
What is most commonly observed is quite the opposite. Many people are mouth and chest breathers at a fast or irregular pace. Watch someone breathe when they’re stressed or angry. You’ll see the mouth wide open and the chest and shoulders processing short, aggressive breaths interspersed with breath holds as they think and assess and get drawn away from a peaceful, controlled space.
Over 80% of people with anxiety have dysfunctional breathing. Anxiety levels are constantly on the rise to the point of being an epidemic. You can do the maths on how important your breath is in terms of your mental health.
Unfortunately, a negative feedback loop is created in which anxiety leads to short, shallow breathing and short, shallow breathing fires up our stress responses and fight-or-flight response.
Without going off on too much of a tangent, learning to focus on your breath as you go about your day will help bring you back to feelings of control and centre. It’s the one constant in life from the day you’re born to the day you die.
Breathwork isn’t just something you do whilst lying down with inspiration music on. It’s a simple way to pull yourself back from the chaos around you, finding a base point on which to build out a more appropriate reaction.
Conversely, if we spend the majority of our life in a state of ‘light, low and slow’ we regularly stimulate our vagus nerve which connects the control tower from the brain to the lungs to the heart to the digestive system.
If these work well, we feel great and can function physically at a high level.
If they don’t work well, life is a slog and virtually every physical challenge feels like a death march – hardly what we want if we envision a life of peace, health, adventure, activities and/or sport.
Even if your only goal when reading my work is to lose fat and look better, we know that staying lean requires a body adept at utilising fat for fuel. This occurs in large amounts when we use our aerobic system.
To spare you too much science, the breakdown of fat for fuel requires about four times as much oxygen as the breakdown of carbohydrates does. Whilst this means we can call on carbohydrates as a fuel source much more quickly, it also means that if we want to burn more fat either just to get rid of it or to use for long duration physical challenges, we need to haul loads of oxygen through our system.
We even need our aerobic system to recover from heavy weightlifting sets so even if you think you just want to pack on muscle to look good, you’re going to need a good aerobic system in order to optimise your training.
Low oxygen levels = Reduced fat burning and reduced quality of training
In summary, unless you improve your breathing patterns, your mental and physical wellbeing and performance are going to be compromised.
HOW DO I KNOW IF MY BREATHING NEEDS WORK?
You should be sold already but might still assume you breathing is fine because you’re already in good shape.
We could rig you up to a VO2max test and look into respiratory rates and so on but here’s a simple test you can do right now wherever you are.
The BOLT Test (Body Oxygen Level Test)
- Sit up straight
- Breathe normally for three breaths
- On the exhale of breath three, pinch your nose, hold your breath and start a timer
- Hold your breath until you get a sensation of needing to take another
- The minimum standard is 25 seconds and the ideal is 40 seconds
Remember this is not a breath hold competition against your best friend! When you feel the urge to breathe like a chest bump or throat tightening, the test is over.
If you want something more physical, try the Maximum Breathlessness Test
- Breathe normally for three breaths
- On the exhale of breath three, pinch your nose, hold your breath and start walking at normal speed
- You should be able to get 80-100 steps without taking another breath
These are two basic tests that show how effective your breathing is at rest and low intensity. If these are difficult, it shouldn’t take too much of a mental leap to realise how your breathing is restricting your workout, running, cycling, rowing or sports performance.
At this point you can see why ‘breathwork’ isn’t just for athletes, people who want to reach some yogic high or break a 3 minute breath hold whilst taking an ice bath.
It is in fact the most fundamental and therefore powerful technique we should be looking to master at all levels of being a human.
HOW DO I IMPROVE MY BREATHING?
All facets of breathing are clearly important, but like a learning lifting exercises in the gym, it pays to take a progressive approach, building one ‘skill’ at a time in the order below.
Technique > Volume > Coordination > Endurance > Strength and Power
Just like a squat, we wouldn’t ask someone to lift heavier to build their strength if they have poor technique and can’t do many good reps in a row.
Just like training methods, there are also infinite approaches so it’s worth trying a few out to see what works best for you.
This is a rough guide.
Technique
Learn to use the right entry point and the right muscles to do the work. In through the nose, down into the diaphragm.
TRY THIS:
Lay on your back or sit up straight and put your hands on your bottom ribs. Breathe lightly through your nose only so that you can’t hear your breath.
If you like, hold one hand on your ribs for a target and have one hand over your nostrils. If you can feel your breath, you’re breathing too hard for now.
Focus your breath so that you feel your bottom ribs expand into your hands. Keep checking in with your upper chest, neck and shoulders to ensure you aren’t reverting to your old breathing patterns.
Do this for 5 minutes.
Volume
Once your technique is excellent and you can do it with ease and very little conscious thought, look to increase the amount of air that you can move in each breath, known as your Tidal Volume.
The fewer breaths you need to get any given job done or fulfil any given demand the better as you will keep your system further from stress and a fight-or-flight response.
TRY THIS:
Continue as above but now focus on full breaths. Don’t change direction on the breath until you are sure you have fully expanded or shrunk your rib cage.
Do this for 5 minutes.
Coordination
It shouldn’t take long to improve your breathing pattern whilst sitting or lying but taking that into a more active situation is a whole new challenge. Learning to create a breathing rhythm in time with your chosen activity such as running or cycling is important.
TRY THIS:
Take your new breathing skills for a walk. Try to inhale over three steps and exhale over the next three steps.
Do this for 5-10 minutes using nasal breathing only.
If that feels okay, try to perform one inhale-exhale cycle with each rowing stroke in the gym at a stroke rate of 22-25 strokes per minute.
Try to inhale over three strides and exhale over three strides when running.
Do this in blocks at first if you need to. For instance, try 1-2 minutes at a time of nasal breathing when running. When you feel too much of an urge for more oxygen, breathe as you normally would.
You might want to use the nose to inhale and mouth to exhale as you start to move beyond Zone 2, low intensity work.
Don’t beat yourself or force anything. Frequency of practise in small doses will prove very effective.
Endurance
Do the above for longer and longer!
The greater time you can stay in a state of controlled breathing, the longer you will be able to endure whatever physical challenge you throw at your body and excel in low intensity activities.
If you can stay in Zone 2 Heart Rate range and breathe light and low, you will become a much better endurance athlete compared to those who panic breathe, delve into the anaerobic / lactate system early and hit that slippery slope of deteriorating performance.
TRY THIS:
Start running for longer and go cycling using the methods above.
From here you can start to increase the speed at which you work whilst still maintaining light but quality breathing.
Strength and Power
Now you can do what you want for as long as you need, you can look to increase the strength of the breath so that you’re able to inhale oxygen and expel carbon dioxide at a faster rate. This will help you build ‘top end’, high intensity performance.
Think stronger finishes and a greater ability to process lactic acid and the by-products of its use as an energy source at higher intensities.
TRY THIS:
Perform the same but shorten the time over which you inhale and exhale such as moving from a breath cycle every 6 strides to a breath cycle every 4 strides.
Like most things in fitness, there is never one perfect path for everyone and there are many, many breathing protocols to use for different objectives so this article is by no means a definitive guide.
Some people have good breathing coordination but a low tidal volume.
Some people have good tidal volume but don’t exhale very hard and so struggle to expel carbon dioxide fast enough.
Some people have good low level performance but struggle at higher intensities and some are the exact opposite.
Some people will need some extra work on thoracic mobility and rotation to enable their ribs to expand more.
I strongly suggest consulting someone who can observe and test all of the important components and build you a suitable program just like with any other fitness goal.
Don’t guess and waste time or get things wrong. Identify your strength and weaknesses and plug the holes.
Whichever direction you wish to take your health and fitness and whatever level your personal goals are at, I guarantee establishing better breathing will be as close to a magic pill as you’re going to get.
You’ll likely experience all manner of unexpected improvements in your mental health, day-to-day wellbeing, sleep…the list is endless!
Breathe better and your life will be better. End of story!
Unleash the power of your own breath at the Ignition Transformation Weekend
(February 15 and 16 2025)
