Week 7- Breath and your sport
Exerting our bodies through sport requires a constant supply of fresh oxygen and nutrients to be delivered to our muscles and soft tissues. As we inhale we take air into our lungs our body takes oxygen from this air and transports it to our cells, via our blood. Our blood takes waste products (carbon dioxide) from our cells back to our lungs to be recycled into the outside air, which we do through exhaling.
The act of breathing uses a number of muscles between our heads and hips. The more capable these muscles are of expanding and contracting (being elastic), the less effort we will perceive in each breath.
Asides from being vital for our survival, our breath also has an impact on our voice, posture and mood. Whilst breathing is a function we do automatically, we can also manipulate our breathing using exercises which help us to calm our mood, improve our posture, speak/sing better and fully utilize our lung capacity.
Posture affects how well we move and in turn could therefore affect our performance in sport and possibly how likely we might be to get injured.
If we practice allowing our bodies to move as we breathe, we can, over time affect our posture with our breath. Try breathing with your shoulders hunched, rounded forwards and your body bent over, now try the opposite. What do you feel with rounded shoulders compared with relaxed shoulders? Finally try noticing the movements your body naturally wants to make as you breath – this can take time to develop, however, you will likely find your ribcage wants to expand all the way round from your sternum at the front to your spine at the back of your body, the muscles in your face, neck, head, shoulders and belly also expand and contractand you may find that you feel more relaxed mentally.
Breath is also linked to our fight/flight response – a sudden shock will generally result in a sharp intake of breath and possibly even cause us to hold our breath for a moment. Sprinters often take a big inhale in ‘set’ position and then a long exhale as they explode out of the blocks.
In summary by becoming aware of our breath and using breathing exercises, over time, we can improve our posture, increase our lung capacity and calm our nervous system. Increasing our lung capacity and posture may help us perform better. Our body performs digestion and repair work best at rest, (when our nervous system is in parasympathetic mode). Therefore calming our nervous system after our efforts, allows our body to recover, repair itself and be more ready for our next bout of work.
There are a number of different exercises you can follow for breathing, if you are interested in further reading I particularly like “Anatomy of Breathing” by
Blandine Calais-Germain. For those of you interested in yoga and breath I like “Prana and Pranayama” by Swami Niranjananansa Saraswati, although I would add that some of theses exercises are quite strong so it may be best to find a yoga practitioner to work with.
For the runners amongst you on a long distance play with inhale for three strides, exhale for three strides
When I am running recovery runs at a slow pace/low heart rate I find myself inhaling and exhaling through my nose, however, when I am sprinting and exerting maximum effort I’m using my mouth and nose without even thinking about it. During recovery my aim is to encourage my breathing rate to slow and regulate length of my inhale and exhale, this in turn allows me to calm my head ready for the next hard effort.
Some Breathing Practices I take you through in my attached video:
Diaphragm Breathing
Inhale/Exhale & pause
Nasal Breath
Sssss breath
Bee breath
