Breathing While Working Out
Breathing While Working Out
Working out can be tough and tiring. Of course, challenging yourself a little more each time you exercise is necessary if you’re trying to reach a specific fitness goal. But don't forget about the other, smaller tweaks that can improve your workout performance and, by extension, your results. One of those small things that can make a big difference is paying attention to your breathing.
It sounds simple, and in a way, it is! After all, breathing is something you are born knowing how to do, and your body typically does it on autopilot. But there are different ways to breathe which can be adjusted depending on a variety of conditions, and the respiratory process that goes on inside your body to regulate every single breath is seriously complex.
Take for example your diaphragm, which is a muscle located between your thoracic cavity (chest) and abdominal cavity and should be the main workhorse that powers your breathing whether you’re exercising or not. Yet many of us don’t fully engage this muscle when breathing, and instead take shorter, more shallow breaths that begin and end in the chest. This increases your heart rate and blood pressure, which can ultimately increase feelings of anxiety and stress, and even make you feel short of breath.
Diaphragmatic breathing, on the other hand, is your best bet for efficient, effective breathing. This specific type of breathing, which engages the diaphragm muscle with every breath, involves slowly breathing in through the nose or mouth (preferably the nose), filling up your abdominal area (versus your chest) with air, and then slowly exhaling as the stomach collapses. When exercising, diaphragmatic breathing can help ensure core activation and that you’re breathing deeply enough to deliver enough oxygen to the muscles, which prevents them from fatiguing earlier.
To demonstrate this kind of breathing, I tell my clients to take a deep breath through their nose and then to exhale as if they are an airplane decelerating upon landing. I also have them pay close attention to how their core responds by tightening like a girdle.
Now the trick is when to exhale and when to inhale. The answer can be found in my last article about concentric, eccentric and isometric components to each exercise. (See ellicottvilleNOW.com archive 11-18-21 issue.)
For strength training in general, breathing out on the concentric phase of the lift (when you’re doing a bicep curl, the concentric portion is when you lift the weight toward your shoulder, and the eccentric portion is when you lower it back toward the ground) is the most commonly recommended technique. That’s because when you exhale and squeeze the air out, you increase core engagement. In strength training, a tight core equals more power and more stability - and you want to have that extra help on the most challenging part, the lift.
The bottom line on breathing: While breathing is one of the most natural, automatic processes in the body, paying attention to your breath during a workout can help make sure you’re breathing as efficiently and effectively as possible. The techniques above can be intuitive for some people and a learned skill for others, which is why it's important to become mindful and stay mindful of your breathing as you move.
Kim Duke is a certified personal trainer and owner of Core Performance Fitness and Training, 55 Bristol Lane, Ellicottville, NY. Kim resides in Ellicottville where she raised her two sons, Zach and Nik. For more information about her studio visit her Facebook page or www.coreperformancefitness.com. Kim can be reached at 716-698-1198.
