0:00 what if there was a way that you could immediately feel better when you're running after 10 years as a professional triathlete and after working with hundreds of Runners I've noticed that Learning To Breathe the correct way will make all the difference if you want to run fast with no effort so in this video I'm going to show you how you can improve your running immediately with five different techniques that'll make you more relaxed more powerful and most importantly make you run faster when I first started training seriously I would always hit this uncomfortable wall in the first few minutes of every single run I felt like I had to spent the first 10 to 15 minutes just working my way into my stride and my breathing I felt sluggish my heart rased and my breathing
0:45 was all over the place it was like my body wasn't prepared for the demand I put on it no matter how mentally ready I felt over time I learned that this wall had less to do with my fitness and more to do with my nervousness you see our bodies operate under two main states the first one is called the parasympathetic system and that is the rest and digest mode the second one is called the sympathetic system and that is the flight or fight mode my mistake was that I was in a parasympathetic State and then I would just start running but as I discovered we need to activate the sympathetic system before we start running so how do we do this well one of the experts in this area is called whim half and He suggests that to activate
1:32 the sympathetic nervous system or the fight or flight system we can use something called Power breaths it's a simple breathing exercise that signal to your body that it's time to go here's how you do it stand up straight and then take a deep controlled breath through your nose and then exhale forcefully now you repeat this five to 10 times so really focusing on powerful inhalations and Powerful exhales these power breaths help prepare your lungs and your heart and your muscles for the Run ahead so you're not just starting from a cold state so that breaks the question how do we breathe while we're running a common misconception is that
2:18 when you feel out of breath it's because you need more oxygen in fact when I was training in my early years whenever I'd push myself to the Limit I thought that I was running out of oxygen so i' just try to inhale harder but this only made things worse until I had to stop or slow down because I was simply just hyperventilating you see that feeling of being out of breath has less to do with oxygen intake and more to do with CO2 output when CO2 builds up in your blood it triggers your brain to make you breathe faster essentially your brain thinks we need to get rid of this CO2 now so being out of breath is a signal to get rid rid of CO2 and not to take in more oxygen so how do we take advantage
3:05 of this knowledge to manage CO2 whenever you feel out of breath you can focus on what's called forceful exhales ever so often when I'm pushing myself I will do these forceful exhales like this what I do is I breathe normally and then I exhale forcefully like I'm about to blow out a candle I do this to get rid of all the CO2 I can and get a hold of my breath once again now this doesn't mean that you should just forcefully exhale every single time you breathe but just try to do this sometimes or maybe just when you push yourself then have those forceful exhales once in a while if you're anything like me then you'll notice that this small tweak will help you regain control of your breath so much faster now that you're getting rid
3:51 of CO2 it's time to add structure you see we don't want our breathing to be random instead we need what's called rhythmic breathing when I started training with leite athletes I noticed something strange their breathing was not random whether they knew it or not their breathing was rhythmic and tied to their stride and from that they cannot hide this Rhythm wasn't just a habit it was a technique they used to optimize oxygen intake think of rhythmic breathing as a dance with your steps when you sink your breath with your stride you just create this natural flow and you feel like it's so much easier to maintain and also it keeps you focused the pattern I use is called a 32 pattern
4:38 and I found that most athletes I work with tend to find that a 3-2 pattern is the easiest to maintain so what you do is you inhale for three steps and then you exhale for two steps then you repeat now the 32 pattern is in no way shape or form perfect for every athlete but use the principles of rhythmic breathing to find your own pattern your own way of doing it the most important thing is to find a rhythm and then stay in control now that you're in Rhythm let's focus on how to breathe you see not all breaths are created equal and having a shallow breath can actually leave you drained and give you a headache in my early days of running I was constantly running out of breath despite all my training sometimes I would even feel like I was
5:25 nearing a panic attack when I'd push myself too hard it was like I wasn't in control it wasn't until I discovered what's called diaphragmatic breathing that I realized it wasn't my endurance it was my technique you see most of us tend to breathe very shallow using our chest instead of our diaphragm this type of breathing only fills up the top of our lungs so you're missing out on all the oxygen that you could get if you learned how to breathe correctly you see your lungs are actually designed to expand all the way down to your belly so here's a quick way to practice how to do that place one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly and then try to make your belly rise without your chest when you're
6:10 inhaling and then make your belly fall flat when you're exhaling if you want to be even more advanced try to First fill up your belly and then your chest and then blow out from the belly first and then it just a mental frame that worked for me is thinking about your lungs like a balloon that is getting filled with air once you feel comfortable doing this at rest try to do it while you walk and then try to do it while you run if you do this correctly then you'll fill your lungs with more oxygen so that you can run more relaxed and in turn you'll run faster now that you've learned how to improve your breathing during your run you also need to learn how to improve your breathing after your run last year as I was driving home from work I listened to a podcast by a guy named Dr Andrew
6:57 huberman He was discussing different breathing techniques and how he could improve different aspects of his life with breaths and then he talked about recovery he actually said that he could speed up recovery after training with a specific breathing technique as the guinea pig I see myself as I tried to do this after every single run and I saw a huge Improvement in how I felt after the run but also how quickly my mind could turn to other things the power I tapped into was creating a Paras simp sympathetic State and making my body more relaxed you see the parasympathetic nervous system helps you reduce your breath rate reduce your heart rate and also speed up your recovery so how do we do it to cool down effectively and
7:43 activate the parasympathetic nervous system you can try the following protocol after finishing your run just walk for a few minutes then start to breathe in a box pattern in through your nose for a set number of seconds it could be 4 seconds and then hold your breath on top maybe for 4 seconds then exhale for 4 seconds and then hold on the bottom for 4 seconds you can try a 44 Rhythm or a 55 or 66 whatever works for you but try to keep that frame of box breathing but even though breathing correctly will help you immediately you will never reach your true potential unless you know how to train the right way so to make sure you don't end up wasting your hard efforts you can watch this video
8:29 here well I'll teach you how to run so fast people think you're cheating
