Here at Adventure Fitness Athletic Club, we strive to help our gym members achieve their fitness goals. Through all the tough workouts, challenging classes, and personal one-on-one training, our team is here to support, encourage, and coach you. We’ve found that sometimes, all it takes is a few small adjustments to make a big difference in someone’s fitness level. It could be a slight change in diet, the equipment used, or fine-tuning of form. Or it could even be the way you breathe when you work out.
Surprised? Many people are. Since we all breathe every day without much thought, why would you need to concentrate on your breathing when you work out? It should just happen naturally, right? Well that’s true, breathing does happen, but there are ways that you can consciously change the way you breathe to improve your workout performance and results.
In this blog, we’ll discuss how you can improve your breathing during your workouts, whether you’re at our Thornton, CO, gym, at home, or at an athletic event.
What Makes Oxygen Important During Your Workout?
Our bodies need oxygen to transfer the energy stored in food to a useable form that our muscles (including involuntary muscles like the heart) require to function. The oxygen we breathe is part of the fuel that our bodies burn to perform vital functions like talking, thinking, walking, running, and working out.
The more you use your muscles, the more oxygen your body requires to keep them going. Therefore, the harder you work out, the more oxygen you need for your muscles to do what you’re asking them to.
That’s why breathing properly should be something you focus on when you exercise. Breathing properly can help you run farther, lift heavier, and recover faster after a workout.
What Is Proper Breathing?
There are several different breathing techniques you can use when exercising, and it often depends on what type of exercise you’re doing. A few examples are listed below.
Diaphragmatic breathing
The diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle that’s located between your chest and abdomen. The diaphragm squeezes downward when you breathe in, creating a vacuum that pulls air into your lungs. When you breathe out, your diaphragm relaxes and pulls upward, pushing air out of the lungs and deflating them.
Diaphragmatic breathing, also known as abdominal or belly breathing, is often used during meditation. It leads to a number of benefits such as lowered blood pressure, lowered stress levels, and improved core muscle strength. To practice diaphragmatic breathing, lie on your back with one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach. You can also prop up your feet on a wall for better results. Breathe in through your nose for a couple seconds. You should feel air move into your abdomen and your stomach should expand. Your stomach should move outward while your chest stays still. Open your lips slightly (as if you’re holding a straw in your mouth) and exhale slowly for a couple seconds. With diaphragmatic breathing, only your belly should rise and fall, not your chest. Repeat the exercise 10 times.
You can also use diaphragmatic breathing while you exercise. It can help ensure that you’re breathing deeply enough to get plenty of oxygen to your muscles which can prevent muscle fatigue.
Breathing While Strength Training
During strength training such as lifting barbells or dumbbells, it’s best to inhale as you relax muscles and exhale as you exert muscles.
Therefore, for the safest and most efficient lift possible, you should be exhaling during the concentric portion of your lift. The concentric phase is when your muscles are lifting the weight.
Then, you should be inhaling during the eccentric portion of your lift. The eccentric phase is when you’re returning your weight to the resting position, allowing gravity to bring the weight back down.
Breathing During Bodyweight Exercises
Similar to strength training, during bodyweight exercises, you should inhale during the eccentric (muscle lengthening or resting) part of the motion and exhale during the concentric (muscle shortening or tightening) part of the motion.
For example, during a squat, you should inhale just before you lower down, and exhale when you push back up to the standing position.
During a pushup, you’ll want to inhale when you bend your elbows to lower your body down to the ground, and exhale as you push back up.
Breathing During Isometric Exercise
During an isometric exercise like a plank, try to breathe in and out from your deep core. Keep a rhythm to your breathing, counting to 4 as you breathe in and counting to 4 again as you breathe out.
Breathing During Cardiovascular Exercise
During cardio, try to breathe deeply and use your entire abdominal area for air, instead of just your chest. Keep your breathing rhythmic. It’s better to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth because your nose hairs help purify air, while your sinuses help regulate air temperature and humidity entering your body. Others opt to inhale and exhale through their mouth once they’re ramped up, since mouth breathing is probably best for maximum power.
While running, many experts say you should breathe in a 3:2 inhale-to-exhale ratio. You can count this by inhaling on left-right-left foot strikes and exhaling on right-left foot strikes.
If your breathing is short and hurried during cardio, your heart rate will increase and your endurance will decrease.
Practicing Your Breathing at Adventure Fitness Athletic Club
While breathing is one of the most natural, automatic things you do, it takes practice to pay attention to the way you breathe during workouts and make sure your breathing is as efficient as possible. If you ever have questions about how to breathe better during your workouts at Adventure Fitness Athletic Club, speak to a member of our staff for assistance. Our personal trainers can give you lots of tips on proper breathing during exercise, which is another reason why we’re the best gym in Thornton, CO. For more information about our gym, visit us or contact Susan at 720-849-0245 or susan@adventurefitness.club.
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