Breathing techniques for exercising…

Breathing is what most of us do without a second thought but it is an essential part of living and so an essential part of training.

I have presented teacher training courses for over a decade now and it's at these intense workshops that I recognize how insufficiently people often breath.  I have had many students become nervous and tense and whilst on the podium, they take a big breath in and then forget the exhale!  They land up huffing and puffing and believe it's their lack of fitness.As much as we need to correct posture at each and every class, we need to inform clients on the correct breathing techniques.

The style of breathing will depend on the discipline being performed.

For example, in Pilates we train our clients to breath laterally, expanding their rib cage to the side and also into the back. We are focusing on moving the air down into the lower third of the lungs to steer away from shoulder breathing which is often a sign of tension and stress.  In Pilates, inhaling is encouraged through the nose and exhaling through the mouth.

The breathing will depend on the exercise being performed at that moment but in general, we inhale to prepare and exhale on the movement or the muscle contraction/engaging of the core.

In Yoga, there are a good few breathing techniques and it forms again, a very important focus of the class.  One of the most commonly used is Ujjayi breath or the ocean breath for the sound that it makes from the throat. Unlike Pilates, this form of breathing encourages both in and out the nose with the mouth closed and relaxed.

There are more rapid breathing techniques as well as single nasal and so forth all done with a purpose in mind such as increase the internal body temperature.Looking at exercise in general, when participating in weight training, breathing is similar to Pilates; inhale to prepare and exhale on execution.When participating in cardio classes, we encourage our members to comfortably breath and equal length of inhale and exhaling.

In our stretch classes or stretch portion of our classes, the focus is on inhaling deeply to relax the muscles and then exhale naturally.Often when we have participated in an intense class we find ourselves breathing rapidly after the class even and although our breathing was balanced during the workout.  This is the body’s natural way of recovering and again we suggest diaphragm breathing.There is also the Valsalva technique which is generally used during Plyometrics training whereby the participant holds the breath to stabilize the body just before the explosive movement.

There is often so much for the client to think about during classes that they get confused or flustered trying to incorporate the breathing.  It is best to ask them to initially just focus on a balanced inhale and exhale and eventually they will fall into the correct rhythm of when to breath.