Learning to Breathe?

I was asked this recently by a client on proper breathing during exercise or running.  Not being a super expert on breathing, I probably didn’t give him the best response to his question.  So to help explain breathing and doing it during sports, I brought in chiropractic physician, Dr. Doug Maxeiner to explain.

Doug has a company here in Columbus called Maxeiner Chiropractic & Muscle Therapy Clinic LLC  If you have questions for him about breathing or other chiropractic questions (he has worked with many different athletes), you can click here to visit his chiropractor website.

To explain Learning to Breathe, here is Doug.

This may seem like a basic concept and hopefully for many it is.  What is the proper way to breathe?  Why is it important?

Breathing is obviously essential to life but it also important to consider the way we are breathing.  Most people have not been “instructed” how to breathe unless they are singers or play a wind instrument.

The primary muscle of respiration is the diaphragm.  It is a dome shaped muscle laying below the lungs and attaching to the bottom ribs.  When the muscle contracts, it lowers.  This acts like a piston which drops, causing a decrease in pressure resulting in air entering the lungs.  When the muscle relaxes, it restores (increases) the resting pressure in the lungs causing air to exit the lungs.

See if you can breathe! 

You can try this standing (hard), sitting, or laying down (easiest).  Place one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly.  Take in a shallow to medium breath using your diaphragm.  When done properly, your abdomen will expand and your chest will remain still.

Ideally, you will get expansion on the sides of your abdomen as well as the front.  Just getting the abdomen to move may be enough for now.  Many “untrained” breathers will have some difficulty isolating this movement, so don’t be discouraged.

OK, so now you know how to breathe. Why is that different than what I was doing?

The diaphragm is designed to work all the time.  The chest and upper back muscles are not designed to work all the time.  If you found your chest and upper back doing most of the work, you are working inefficiently.  This is like asking a sprinter to run a marathon.  The chest muscles should only be called upon for extreme need such as increasing air handling when the diaphragm is at maximum capacity and more ventilation is necessary (anaerobic debt).

How does it apply to sports? 

In addition to the improved efficiency of using the proper muscles, using the diaphragm helps to maintain core stability.  You can’t get too far in an exercise program before someone throws out the “core”.  The core acts as a foundation or an anchor for movement.  A proper breathing pattern solidifies the core.

There is generally a resting tone which is achieved by our abdominal muscles (obliques, transverse abdominus, quadratus lumborum, multifidus).  By breathing with the diaphragm, an intra-abdominal pressure is created which increases the force of that anchor.  This is one of the reasons for wearing a weight belt as well as holding your breath to complete a lift.  The pelvic floor and abdominal muscles should act as braces against the pressure from the diaphragm.

When one of these is not doing their job, it allows for an energy leak and maximal power is not achieved.  You can have these leaks by having weakness in the abdominal muscles, a tilted pelvis, or flared lower ribs.

Once you feel like you have mastered breathing in a standing position, try it during a run.  As with most exercises, the more demand that is placed on the body, the more likely weakness will be exposed.  As you run faster, oxygen demands will increase and so will your power generation.  You will likely notice degradation in form as you start to recruit your accessory muscles of respiration (chest and upper back).