Improve Performance with Breathing

Ever taken a deep breath to relax from a stressful situation? Did it help? Let’s take this moment to relax. As you are relaxing, take a few breaths and go to your happy place (where’s your happy place? Mine’s pretty much on par with Happy Gilmore’s. For those of you unfamiliar with Happy Gilmore, it was the 90s version of Caddyshack. Oh, and Caddyshack, is…wait a sec, just Netflix it! But Happy Gilmore was a golf comedy starring Adam Sandler, back when he was actually funny). Back to the topic at hand, do you feel better after taking those deep breaths? More importantly, did you notice anything? If you didn’t, indulge me and try it again. Try and pay more attention to what your body is doing. What moved? Assuming you don’t have any medical conditions affecting your breathing, if your shoulders elevated like you were performing a shoulder shrug, congratulations, you are a chest breather. More importantly, you are inefficient at breathing.

So you are an inefficient breather. Sounds funny to say. Probably sounds even more preposterous to be told. I bet you are ready to counter by hurling an insult back my way like, “you son of a motherless goat!” (3 Amigos, again, Netflix it). Don’t be alarmed because this is a common trait in today’s less active rat race called life. We compromise our breathing pattern from deep diaphragmatic breaths to shallower chest breaths. As a result, we ask less efficient muscles to help in breathing which in turn will lead to poor posture.

Your breathing is subconsciously controlled by the respiratory system and is an automatic response. Diaphragmatic breathing is the fastest way to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. Believe it or not, as a baby you were a diaphragmatic breather. However, as you got older and your lifestyle changed to a more sedentary one, your body responded by picking up a less efficient breathing habit. When this shift in breathing occurs, it can make muscles in the neck, shoulders and upper back tense up because they are asked to do more work (so the pain in your neck might not be the result of your spouse or kids…I said might). The sympathetic nervous system is triggered when we feel anxiety or stress, which can be the cause of breathing or the effect of a stressful situation. With deeper breathing, you can manage high levels of stress to low levels in seconds. And it’s probably something you don’t ever think about that might be affecting everything from posture to daily tasks and exercise.

And cue the “Yawwwwwwwwn!” But if you’ve gotten this far and you either yawned from boredom or fatigue, guess what, it may have been caused by the lack of oxygen FROM YOUR BREATH. Research on this is still debatable. Give it a try. What do you have to lose, if it works, you'll feel better and more energetic (and you can send me the checks you were going to give your chiropractor). 

Next question, how many breaths do you take in one minute? Feel free to test this now if you would like. Ok, so if you were in the 20s or higher and don’t have a history of panic attacks, you might have resembled and sounded like a hyperventilating pug trying to catch it’s breath (now before you bash me for my seemingly heartless pug comparison, I’m not only a pug lover but also a pug owner. And add insult to injury, she is also a diaphragmatic breather). A good breathing cadence, exercise excluded, is between 12-15 breaths per minute. That’s right, that’s 12,000-15,000 breaths in a day. That’s a lot of breaths!

Here are some drawbacks to Chest Breathing:

·      Inhale less oxygen and exhale less carbon dioxide: The excessive, shallow breaths will create low levels of carbon dioxide and can lead to panic attacks or feeling anxious.

·      Accessory muscle recruitment: By breathing into your chest, you are making other muscles work harder. Common ailments can be anything from your posture being altered to tension in your shoulders, neck and back.

·      Inefficient exercise capacity: Again, this goes back to muscle recruitment. Your endurance for performance and your recovery will be affected because you will tire yourself out faster and the recovery process is slower.

Here are some benefits to Diaphragmatic Breathing:

·      Strengthens major organs of the body.

·      Improved health factors: Helps lower blood pressure and blood sugar, releases serotonin (which is chemical responsible for maintaining mood balance), increases blood flow, detoxifies the body, relieves pain, improves mental focus and the ability to relax, sleep quality, and more.

·      Breathing behind the shield: By breathing into the diaphragm, it will help stabilize the trunk. If the trunk links the upper body and lower body, the structure is more solid. A chink in the armor leads to something I call, “The Wet Noodle,” leakage in energy where the upper and lower body more independently.

·      Exercises appear more fluid and beautiful: Despite how easy or challenging the training might actually be, it is performed with grace and agility. As a result, the body conserves more energy for performance. Excellent examples are professional dancers, mix martial artists, gymnasts and yoga masters.

That’s right, your breath might be an area that is holding you back! How do you fix it?

Try slowing it down with more meaningful breaths. A cue I use is to think pregnant belly. That’s right, I use this with my male clients too and it involves inhaling deep into your belly so its full as if you were pregnant. Another technique is to practice Crocodile Breathing. This is a more relaxing technique and a great way to re-set the body. Lie down on your stomach with your arms across one another in front of your body so your head can rest on it. Now try breathing into the belly by pushing it into the floor. The result will be movement in the lower back. If you are having trouble with this, take a book or a magazine and place it on the lower back. Channel your breaths to fill the belly to make the book move.

Tying it all together: Try transitioning your new breathing pattern to mimic those techniques into your lifestyle. Now try incorporating them into stretching and light movements like: rocking, rolling and crawling patterns. Good, you’ve worked at establishing a baseline and you are ready to dial in the intensity. What you did was progress in breathing from the most basic level into stretching then light movements and into more intense forms of activity. Was it easy? Probably not. And anytime during exercise you test your anaerobic energy systems, there will be a breaking point where you will change your breathing. The trick here is cadence or once intensity is complete, restore it as quickly as you can.

Ok, class so what did you learn today? Generation X’ers probably got a little nostalgic about the movie references while later generations expanded popular culture knowledge. In both cases, your welcome! More importantly, I hope you took away the importance of diaphragmatic breathing and how to make it part of your lifestyle. By simply working on your breathing, unlock your body’s unbelievable potential for training or sports performance and watch as you improve.

So the next time you find yourself in a stressful situation, take a moment to yourself and take a few deep breaths. But this time, through your diaphragm. Best of luck in your training!