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You exhaust yourself with fitness, and still don’t lose weight. Why? One of the reasons is improper breathing. Superficial and frequent. But you have to breathe like professional runners – rarely and deeply. WDay.ru talks about five reasons why you need to breathe correctly, and explains how to learn it.
Reason # 1 – oxygen supply
Our fat bins represent energy in a “passive” form. Without pretense, they can be compared to a pile of coal or a wood-burning raspberry. In order for the fat to “flare up”, it must be fanned exactly like a fire. In other words, provide oxygen supply. For this reason, when you run, you begin to breathe more often. The more often you breathe, the more oxygen in the blood. The more it gets into the area of fat accumulation. Then everything is simple: fat burns and gives energy to working muscles.
Now let’s make two important conclusions. First: training intensity should be high. The more energy your muscles need, the more fat your body will have to burn. The second conclusion, the most important one: you need to breathe during sports not just how, but correctly.
Do not gasp like a fish during sports. Lost breathing is not a sign of serious stress.
Reason # 2 – the right load
To an inexperienced beginner, it seems that his choppy, out of breath is a sign that he has taken a really serious load on his chest. Accordingly, more fat, they say, will burn. No, it’s not like that at all. When you gasp for air with your mouth wide open like a fish washed ashore, it just means that your body there is a catastrophic lack of oxygen. This has nothing to do with the loss of kilograms, since the lack of air automatically leads to the “damping” of the metabolic flame, that is, slowing down the burning of fat.
Remember the burning of a candle. In the open air, it burns calmly and evenly. But as soon as you cover her with a glass, in other words, “cut off her oxygen”, as it immediately goes out. So the harder you breathe, the less hope you have for losing weight.
If you breathe through your chest while exercising, your lungs will only work to a third of their potential volume.
Reason # 3 – heart rate
Breathing is an unconscious process. Watch yourself while watching TV. You breathe in and your chest heaves. This is the so-called chest breathing, in which the body spends a minimum of its strength. When you breathe through your chest, the inhalation is involuntarily shallow, since air only circulates in the upper part of the lungs.
During fitness sessions, you continue to breathe through the chest out of a long-term habit. As a result, the lungs work at barely a third of their potential volume. Such breathing almost immediately creates an energy deficit, as the body desperately lacks oxygen. In response, the body tries to make breathing more frequent – speeds up the heart rate. As a result, the pulse quickens, stress is created for the body. It is because of him that the next day after aerobics, instead of pleasant fatigue, you feel completely fatigued.
Oxygen exchange is most efficient in the lower part of the lungs. Simply put, you need to breathe with your stomach.
Reason # 4 – posture correction
Remember: oxygen exchange is most efficient in the lower part of the lungs. To get air here, you need to breathe deeply – diaphragm (or “abdominal”) breathing. Simply put, you have to breathe with your stomach.
But now let’s start experimenting: inhale – the belly is inflated, exhale – the belly is drawn in, pushing out the remnants of the processed air. If it turns out that it is difficult for you to breathe with your stomach, then you have very bad posture. Stand with your back against the wall and try to simultaneously press the back of your head, buttocks and calves against the wall. Again, try to inhale with your belly. Happened? Anyway, first you need to correct your posture and only then take on a serious aerobic cycle aimed at shock weight loss. Otherwise you will suffocate and do not master even half the desired load.
Breathing through the nose activates the diaphragm and calms the biorhythms of the brain. As a result, fatigue comes later.
Reason # 5 – fighting fatigue
How to breathe – through the nose or through the mouth? Definitely a nose! Mouth breathing limits the vital capacity of the lungs and burns gas exchange in the body even in the case of correct “abdominal” breathing. But “nasal” breathing, on the contrary, activates the diaphragm as much as possible. In addition, breathing through your nose calms your brain biorhythms, just like meditation. As a result, fatigue comes later.
Breathing through the nose seems more difficult than breathing through the mouth, but this is only at first. To teach yourself a strict breathing rhythm, count your steps (or strokes, or pedaling – it doesn’t matter) and adjust your breaths in and out to match them. Gradually increase the breathing interval. If you used to breathe in every second step, now try to breathe in every fourth. Continue breathing in a new way, not only in the gym, but in your everyday life. And take your time: mastering this science may take you from 3 to 10 weeks of practice.
Based on materials from Missfit.ru.