Have you been having a difficult time breathing while you're out running and you just feel like ah, I can't catch my breath or I just run out of breath too soon? You’re not sure, should I breathe through my nose? Should I breathe through my mouth? What should I be doing? Well, I'm Jesse Funk and on today's episode of Runner’s High, let's talk about breathing.
There's been a lot of analyzing and debating and trying to figure out, is it better to breathe through your nose or your mouth? Should you do it this way or should you do it that way? Should you breathe through your chest through your stomach or in this rhythm or that rhythm? And clearly, you're here to settle that debate or at least get my opinion, which I appreciate you for.
So, if you want more of my opinions, as always hit that subscribe button in the bottom right hand corner. What you want to remember is that there are two sides of this debate; nose or mouth, and which side we fall on here?
If you've been going over and over this debate by yourself trying to figure it out, googling and talking to people and debating this point in that point, here's the truth and the secret of all of it. I promise this is the truth, you're overthinking it. Nose or mouth is a dumb debate period. Use both at the same time.
They're both made for us to intake air so we get maximum oxygen uptake when we're running. There's no point in one or the other. Now, if you're like me and you have difficulty breathing through your nose because you have allergies, then find a good allergy medication.
Unfortunately I wasted probably 10 years of my life, the best running years I had not getting a good allergy medication and not having the ability to breathe at my maximum capacity. So, don't make my mistake. I probably missed out on my best times because I didn't look at that issue in a more succinct way and fix it. So, if you're like, ah, my nose is stuffy, you probably have allergies.
I have them every day, all year. It's an odd situation, I guess. But once I got allergy medication, I could breathe so much better and it wasn't even a concern anymore; should I breathe through my nose or my mouth. So, that's the easiest way to deal with that particular situation.
If it's a matter of trying to feel the right rhythm of breathing again, don't overthink this. It's not going to be terribly crazy. And I say that there are a lot of things that your body already knows how to do. You just have to be in tune to do them. So, recently I was at the track running intervals, a workout that my coach had setup; anywhere between tempo and really quick.
So, what I noticed, I was paying attention to was my breathing and I breathe at that particular pace, two steps then I'm breathing, two steps, and then I breathe out. So, I have this two two rhythm, almost no matter what pace I'm going once I start going faster.
This isn't necessarily the case when I'm doing a long run where it's probably going to be more like three three or something like that. It may even be two two and more shallow breaths. But the thing is your body kind of knows how much oxygen it needs. I mean, your lungs work ?? 03:18> nervous system, which is the system that works without you having to think about it.
You know. if you've ever thought about breathing and you can't breathe all of a sudden it’s ‘cause trying to take over an automatic control that your body already does. You don't have to think about breathing.
Now, the best you can, try to go on a long run, or one of those interval runs, see and observe what your body is doing, focus on your feet, all that kind of stuff and then come back to your breath, what is your breath doing. Try to sync that up a little bit more. So, in my case, when I focused on that two two and really trying to sync up that rhythm, where it’s a nice even two in two out, two in two out; I found that everything fell in the line so much better and I actually sped up just slightly for the same RPE or rate of perceived exertion.
So, don't worry too much about that rhythm, if that's what you're concerned about. Observe it, and then if you want, work on sinking up to your steps, just a little bit easier, and you'll find the flow your motion should come together, a little more when you're running
Last tip about breathing is going to be, remember that you want to take deep breaths. So, no shallow chest breaths, you want to make sure they actually come in through your belly, all the way down. So, when you breathe in deep, your belly will expand a little bit.
I’ve seen these images where it’s like your belly becomes this balloon and, in my opinion, those are over exaggerated. You don't make a big balloon shape with your belly, unless your belly is already a balloon shape and maybe that's why you're running. But there's no need to try to like push your stomach out when you're breathing.
Just breathe in deep, you'll feel your stomach move if you kind of practice it, but you don't have to worry about I’m gonna make this big balloon shape with my stomach. Just don't breathe in only in your chest, breathe deep and you'll be fine. Do you have any questions for me you’d like to see on future episodes of Runner’s High? Leave them down in the comments below. I'd love to do a video just for you. So, I'll see you next time on the next episode of Runner's High.