Home Chat General Chat

breathing..yup we all do it...

but i'd like to know how to breathe properly when running....



firstly i'm not the most quietest breather...in fact you could hear me over any passing trucks a mile away!...



do you breathe shallow or deep or through the nose and out of the mouth...or as i do...in and out of mouth probably waaay to shallowly??? oh the questions...



come on mr hughes..you're the 'oh wise one' about running...any suggestions???



anyone other ideas greatly received [:)]

Comments

  • jonEjonE Posts: 1,113
    sod what noise you make,it is your technique,no one elses. the faster you push yourself,the faster the heart rate,therefore the greater the need to uptake oxygen quicker.Practice a relaxed breathing technique at a low running pace,in thru' the nose,out through the mouth,and slowly build upthe speed to seee at what point,you have to breathe constantly thru the mouth.As you get more at ease with running the pace should get quicker.Try using a Breathe Right strip to open the nasal passage abit more.
  • BritspinBritspin Posts: 1,655
    Deep & slow..that would be relatively slow, not like I am snoring.

    One should always strive to fill ones lungs as much as possible obviously as this helps gas exchange, but also because if you are belly breathing then the rib cage & shoulders must be relaxed which will further allow rib cage expansion & more air in, Listen to yuor breathing as you run & consciously slow it down..it will feel weird at first, you may even get light headed, but persevere & like any practiced skill it will become second nature. If you ever come on a coached run session with me you will hear 'slow down your breathing/breathe deeply' as my most oft repeated coaching point.
  • BmanBman Posts: 442
    hey Brizzi, I dont know about you, but after a hard run Im sore under the ribs from trying to breathe too hard. Apparently if you breathe too deeply on a hard run, you work your diaphragm too hard and it ends up using oxygen that should be going to the legs. Leads to stitches etc, so when you reach that stage, try shorter shallower breaths to try work the diaphragm less. Well, thats what I read somewhere.
  • SamRSamR Posts: 19
    jon.E wrote:


    Practice a relaxed breathing technique at a low running pace,in thru' the nose,out through the mouth,and slowly build upthe speed to seee at what point,you have to breathe constantly thru the mouth.As you get more at ease with running the pace should get quicker.Try using a Breathe Right strip to open the nasal passage abit more.



    I was taught that that was not correct and you should breathe in and out through the mouth to get the max possible flow into and out of the lungs as the nose is a lot smaller than your mouth!

  • BobalovskiBobalovski Posts: 15
    Brizzi....am no expert but I breath fairly deeply and slowly but breath out sharply and a little quicker than breathing in. I was told that physiologically youre tubes between your lungs and mouth are effectively dead airpaces and as you breath out not all of the co2 expels from these tubes so when you breath in again its a mix of the old exhalation (co2) with the fresh intake of air. So, a sharper exhalation (from the mouth) to purge the used air follwed by a deep slow inhalation (nose) increases your consumption of fresh air. This really works for me. If you've ever done a PADI dive course they talk a bit about this when using a snorkel as the tube extends these dead airspaces and shallow breathing can lead to oxygen starvation.



    I too sound like a steam train when running but I just turn up the volume on my Ipod.....it means I can't hear myself and quite frankly...who cares about anyone else[:D]



    I hope this makes sense....its probably b*ll*cks but it works for me.....happy running (and breathing)
  • brizzichickbrizzichick Posts: 166
    hey guys...thanks for all the replies...will try the various approaches and see wot works for me...



    will also not worry about how much noice i'm making...and if i'm ever running behind you...you'll know who it is and wave to me [;)]
  • from what i was taught in MMA, when your breath in, hold it, then release. Apparantly you absorb more oxygen by holding it for a while (i couldnt tell you how long, but obviously not over 2 seconds or something - just had a mental image of you trying to hold it for 10 seconds and turning blue) instead of blasting it in and out.
  • shadowone1shadowone1 Posts: 1,408
    coma,



    I was taught differently in muay thai, told to breath all the time and to breath hard to engage the muscles...... this has nowt to do with Tri.



    I asked the same question in a thread a few days back and it seems more and more views on the topic are appearing. I try now to slow my breathing down as I find that by breathing sharply that I get a stich. I do have a general breathing problem due to my asthma.



    Coincidently, I've not needed my inhaler in a week now.
  • md6md6 Posts: 969
    Brizzi, I think the best thing to do is what is comfortable. I find if i breathe too hard, then I have a cough for the rest of the day and sorethroat/chest (particularly in the cold) I conciously have tried to ensure that I am relaxed and able to breathe. I think the best way to gauge if you are comfortable is to see if you can say more than 2 words without having to breath again or feel like you are going to ass out. My opinion (which is just that) is that on training runs you want to be able to exchange a few words with someone passing without feeling any the worse for it - a lot of people say to run at a 'conversational pace' but i find if i do that i talk too much and my running partner get a bit p'd off with me.

  • BritspinBritspin Posts: 1,655
    Breathing in is mostly to drive out CO2 rather than get O2 in oddly enough.

    We only absorb a small per centage of inspired O2..can't remember how much now, something like 21% of air is O2 & we breathe out 16% so only absorb 5%, so holding of breath will not allow more gas exchange, but breathing deeper opens up more passages to allow a larger area for absorbtion & thus a greater volume of O2 not a higher %age. So I would still go with breathing in as deeply as you can train yoyrself to do & is comfortable to do...think how you breathe during swimming.
  • gdh250467gdh250467 Posts: 237
    I was advised that as a rule of thumb you only need to change from breathing in through your nose to in through your mouth when your hear rate gets to about 85% of max. Advice was to always try to breathe in through the nose, and then when the going gets tough you can easily increase you o2 uptake by breathing in through your mouth. If you always mouth breathe then you've got nowhere else to go.
  • shadowone1shadowone1 Posts: 1,408
    Britspin wrote:


    Deep & slow..that would be relatively slow, not like I am snoring.

    One should always strive to fill ones lungs as much as possible obviously as this helps gas exchange, but also because if you are belly breathing then the rib cage & shoulders must be relaxed which will further allow rib cage expansion & more air in, Listen to yuor breathing as you run & consciously slow it down..it will feel weird at first, you may even get light headed, but persevere & like any practiced skill it will become second nature. If you ever come on a coached run session with me you will hear 'slow down your breathing/breathe deeply' as my most oft repeated coaching point.



    Britspin,



    I generally have problems with my running, usually its astham related but I decided to give your technique a go. OMG I ran last night superbly. I didn't need to stop as often although I did lose the technique later into the run.



    I also used my HRM and maintained a heart rate of 155 (I'm 31yo) so I'm trying to guage if I was still going too hard. However by slowing my breathing down I did feel alot better (albeit light headed/ dizzy to begin with.)



    Thanks for that!!
  • brizzichickbrizzichick Posts: 166
    i tried this today...was a bit weird at first but it really worked...occassionally had laps of memory (brain went into daydream mode) and went back to old breathing, then remembered and breathed deep again!....i managed to do 7k, then swim for 1200 and then run back home (another 7k)...now this might not be much for you guys but for me, it was brilliant...and i probably coulda kept going on the run!



    got a 10k in a couple of weeks so am definitely going to use this technique...thanks for your advice[:)]
  • BritspinBritspin Posts: 1,655
    Glad to be of service. Thank you too.
Sign In or Register to comment.