You don’t need to be taught how to breathe, do you? It’s something we all do, but are we breathing effectively and efficiently for the task at hand? When you run, you may need to change the way you breathe in order to benefit more from your run, prevent premature exhaustion, and to run with more power.
I want to share with you the best way to breathe while running so that you can do all of these things. You might not think that you can benefit from learning new ways to breathe, but breathing exercises are helpful in many different activities. Knowing how to breathe in a specific way can help you to meditate, relax, do yoga, stretch, swim, and more. Specific breathing exercises are used for so many different activities, and if you know the best way to breathe while running, you can be much more effective.
So, I’m going to share with you a few tips to help you breathe better and therefore run better.
Best Way to Breathe while Running- Nostrils, Mouth
What is the best way to breathe while running? If you’re only breathing through your mouth as you run, that can make you breathe erratically. You can be drawing in too much air at once, and that can lead to a type of hyperventilating. If you want to breathe more effectively while running, you should use your mouth and your nose. This ensures that you get enough oxygen as you run, providing your lungs with the air they need and oxygenating your blood for improved energy and endurance. Use your mouth and nose together as you inhale and exhale for more effective breathing while running.
This ensures steady breathing and provides the maximum amount of oxygen you can breathe in. It also lets you get rid of carbon dioxide very effectively and very quickly so it’s not staying in your body for too long.
Don’t try breathing through your mouth and nose at the same time in the middle of a run for the first time. Instead, practice your breathing outside of running. Work on breathing through your mouth and nose sometimes when you’re at rest, and you’ll see how difficult this may be, since it’s not something you’re used to. Once you are accustomed to breathing this way, you can learn more advanced breathing tips.
Avoid Aching Sides
Do you ever feel pain in your side while you’re running? It’s a very common ailment, and about 70% of all runners suffer from the same problem. Why you experience that stabbing sensation in your side isn’t completely understood, but we do know how to make it less likely to happen. Your diaphragm muscle is used for breathing, and breathing improperly may be what causes this stabbing pain in your side.
New runners often tend to experience side stitches or side pain most often, which lends credence to the notion that improper breathing is to blame. You may want to try warming up your diaphragm before you start running. This can lower your risk of having side pain, and you want to warm up by practicing deep breathing from the belly. I’ll show you how to do that to the moment. What this does is relax the diaphragm muscle.
Once you’ve done your warmup breathing technique, make sure that you breathe regularly and smoothly as you’re running. Start with a low rate of breathing and steadily increase over time as you increase your running speed. This will help to give your body time to adjust to an increased rate rather than going from very low activity to a level of high intensity.
Take Deeper Breaths through Your Belly
What is the best way to breathe while running long distance? You need to learn how to take in deep breaths rather than shallow ones. If you are breathing shallowly, then you’re not maximizing your oxygen flow. Instead of breathing in through your chest, you can learn how to breathe using your belly.
Diaphragmatic breathing is another name for belly breathing, and it helps you to boost your oxygen considerably. It’s the best breathing technique for taking large breaths, and it puts your diaphragm to use to create additional space within the cavity of your chest. This in turn allows your lungs to open up further and take more oxygen in at once.
This also oxygenates your blood and your muscles, leading to greater endurance. If you have plenty of oxygen flowing through your body, you’re less likely to feel fatigued so soon. You’ll be able to run for longer and run harder. Belly breathing doesn’t just increase your endurance, oxygenation, and air intake; it also calms you down and helps you to focus better and stay in the zone as you run.
If you want to practice your belly breathing, a simple way to do that is to lie down on the floor on your back and put hand on your belly. Place the other hand on your chest and then breathe in. See which of these areas where your hands are will rise first. Practice your breathing so that your belly rises first, with air moving there before it moves into your chest. Try to focus so that the air moves from your belly as you breathe in and then up to your chest as you breathe out.
This is the best way to breathe while running long distance, and it will help you get a lot more out of your run.
Timed Breathing
It will also help you if you learn how to time your breathing and produce a cadence with your inhalation and exhalation. Get your breathing into the same rhythm as your running and you’re less likely to experience injury like side stitches. That pain in your side could be passed by irregular breathing, so matching up your running cadence and breathing can help a lot with that. Putting the two of these in time with one another also improves your running performance.
Cadenced breathing, or rhythmic breathing, is the method to match up your steps taken with each inhalation and exhalation. Most runners will usually have the same number of foot strikes to the ground for every breath they take in and breathe out. If you can do the same thing, your running will be much more productive and effective.
This can work in different ways for different people. You can choose one of several different breathing patterns to do. A 2:1 pattern is ideal for most people. With this breathing pattern, you inhale for every two steps you take and then exhale for every one step. This improves stability and helps you to avoid injuries.
With the wrong breathing pattern, you could suffer from running injuries. You may feel pain in your side more often if you’re using something like a 2:2 breathing pattern. That’s because you’re exhaling on the same foot that strikes the ground every single time. This puts stress on one side of your body more than the other side, leading to injury sometimes.
So, those are a few breathing techniques you can use to help you run better and more effectively. If you put them into practice, you should be able to run farther and experience fewer injuries. If you find yourself tiring out quickly or suffering from side stitches as you run, then practice some of these breathing exercises at home before your next run. Once you get good at them, it will become natural for you to breathe properly as you run and make you run more effective.
