How to breathe while running: rhythmic breathing

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

One of the most annoying problems for beginner runners is the inability to breathe properly while running. I think you should perfectly remember the air burning in your throat, burning lungs and the feeling that a little more - and you will now suffocate. But it turns out that breathing problems aren't just when your muscles don't have enough oxygen to function properly. Sometimes persistent injuries to the same side can also be caused by improper one-sided breathing.

As an example, we use the rhythmic breathing technique from the book Running on Air: The Revolutionary Way to Run Better by Breathing Smarter by Budd Coates and Claire Kowalczyk.

According to research by Dennis Bramble and David Carrier, a runner's greatest stress occurs when the foot hits the treadmill coincides with the start of exhalation. This means that if you start to exhale every time your left leg touches the ground (and so on all the time), then the left side of your body will constantly be under more stress than the right. And it is on this side that injuries will most often occur. The same will happen with the right side if you constantly exhale to the right step.

The fact is that while running, your foot hits the ground with a force that exceeds your weight two to three times, and when you also do this on exhalation, the impact increases even more. This is due to the fact that as you exhale, your diaphragm and the muscles associated with its relaxation decrease the stability in your cortex. And the weakened stability during impact creates almost ideal conditions for the occurrence of injuries.

This is the same as loading a backpack with heavy books and a laptop and hanging it on only one shoulder, which will receive a heavy load. In order to align the situation and the back, you need to put on the straps of the backpack on both shoulders, then the load will be evenly distributed.

Rhythmic breathing evenly distributes the load on the body and helps to avoid additional stress. Moreover, rhythmic breathing allows us to focus on our breathing pattern and use it as an additional source of energy for better results.

Yoga teaches us that controlling our breath helps us control our body and calms our mind. Rhythmic breathing and concentration on it is also a kind of meditation, which allows us to subtly feel our body and push out the negative as we exhale. When we fall out of rhythm, we lose touch with the body and begin to be distracted by the numbers in the running app, completely ignoring the signals our body sends us. This, in turn, increases the likelihood of injury.

So, before comprehending the mastery of rhythmic breathing, you need to learn how to breathe with the belly (diaphragm). People usually breathe with either the chest or the belly. As you inhale, your diaphragm moves downward, and your chest muscles expand your ribcage, expand your chest cavity, and draw air into your lungs. Working on the diaphragm and expanding its potential allows you to breathe in more air. The more air you breathe in, the more oxygen your muscles will receive. Many runners are oblivious to how they breathe and prefer to use chest breathing, depriving themselves of the extra oxygen that diaphragm breathing could provide.

In addition to a smaller volume of oxygen, chest breathing has another drawback: the intercostal muscles are smaller in size and get tired faster than the muscles of the diaphragm, that is, you will begin to feel a lack of air much earlier than when breathing with your stomach, so you need to learn to breathe with the diaphragm. You have to breathe through the diaphragm while sitting, standing or lying down, at work and at home, in transport or while eating - you have to breathe like that all the time!

But first:

• Lie on your back.
• Try to keep your upper body and chest from moving.
• Focus on your belly as you inhale.
• Lower your stomach as you exhale.
• While breathing, try to inhale and exhale through your nose and mouth at the same time.

Creating a breathing model

Many runners use the 2: 2 option - inhale on two beats, exhale on two beats. Some people use the 3: 3 option (inhale on three beats, exhale on three beats). But in both cases, the result is the same - the exhalation constantly falls on the same leg. Your task is to choose such a variant of inhalation-exhalation in which the exhalation would alternately fall on the right and then on the left leg.

The book recommends choosing an option in which more blows are received on inhalation than on exhalation. This option has two positive aspects: firstly, during a longer inhalation, your muscles receive more oxygen, and secondly, since exhalation relaxes your core muscles and increases the likelihood of injury, reducing the expiratory time, you reduce the likelihood of these most injuries.

To begin with, you can try using option 3: 2 - inhale in three steps and exhale in two. It is best to practice on the floor:

• Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet completely flat on the floor.
• Your hands should be on your stomach so that you can be sure that you are using diaphragm breathing.
• Breathe in and out through your nose and mouth at the same time.
• Inhale for three counts and exhale for two.
• Concentrate and try to breathe this way without interruption.
• Then complicate the task a little and start breathing, raising your feet one by one, thus imitating walking.

After you are convinced that you can breathe calmly in this rhythm with little or no thought, try standing up and breathing a little this way while walking.

This type of breathing can be comfortable during standard and short runs. If you have to run up a hill, you begin to breathe more quickly, as you have to exert more effort and the muscles require more oxygen. Breathing quickens and the rhythm gets out of hand. In such cases, try to switch to option 2: 1, that is, inhale two steps, exhale one. After the ascent is over and the breathing has calmed down a bit, go back to option 3: 2. Also, breathing in a 2: 1 rhythm is very useful during speed training or competition.

Another option: you can breathe using the 3: 2 option, then use 2: 1 on acceleration, but if you feel that you need to breathe even faster and deeper, then try the 2: 1: 1: 1 rhythm. That is, inhale for two steps, exhale for one, then inhale for one and exhale for one, and then inhale again for two. That is, once you repeat with an exhalation on the same leg, but then change it again. This option is ideal for tackling steep climbs or final acceleration before the finish line.