Running is a common choice that many people choose as an everyday method of exercise. However, the postures and techniques of running are often a concern for many people. The standard respiring method when jogging is less monitored despite it being extremely necessary for your health.
So how to breathe while running? The answer will be in the article below.
How To Breathe While Running
The Importance of Breathing When Running
Increase Stamina And Strength
It is important to ensure enough oxygen to supply the working muscles while jogging. Adjusting the breathing rate properly when running will help absorb more oxygen than puffing fast, short breaths.
When we breathe while jogging, the oxygen-rich air will go to the trachea and, more precisely, the bronchi. The bronchioles within it carry oxygen further to the alveolar sites of the lungs.
At this time, the lungs will perform the task of diffusing and bringing oxygen into the blood vessels. The amount of oxygen in the blood will combine with the protein in red blood cells (hemoglobin) to transport the cells to the muscles and tendons in the body.
When enough hemoglobin has reached the working muscles, they create an energy reserve. The bigger this reserve, the longer you will be able to run.
Reduce Injuries
Injuries that occur during movement, especially when running at an endurance level, often stem from the main cause of improper breathing.
Common injuries when running such as abdominal pain, muscle pain in calves, biceps, thighs, and hip pain below the ribs., possibly caused by the lack of oxygen to muscle cells and tendons that cause pain when moving. You need to know and practice respiring techniques to minimize these injuries.
How To Breathe While Running?
Belly Breathing
Taking short breaths is what most people tend to do when they feel tired. Unfortunately, most of us breathe through our chests. That's not the best way to maximize the amount of oxygen the body receives.
Belly breathing (or diaphragmatic breathing) is a technique that allows you to maximize your oxygen intake while running. Here, the diaphragm plays the main part in taking in and delivering oxygen to the abdominal cavity. This allows the lungs to expand fully to take in more oxygen, aiding in the increase of oxygen-rich blood flow to the muscles involved in the movement.
It allows you to exercise longer without feeling tired. Another plus point of this method is that it helps maintain body equilibrium.
Step to step:
- Lay up
- Inhale through the nose to fill the abdominal cavity with air
- As the stomach expands, push the diaphragm down and out
- Lengthen the exhalation to make the inhalation longer
You should practice this method a few times a day and about 5 minutes a time over several days. When you first start combining this technique with jogging, it is better to maintain a slow pace and increase the speed as you get used to it.
Breathing Exercises
If you only inhale and exhale through your mouth, your respiring will become faster. Yet, as you inhale and exhale through the nose, there will not be enough oxygen.
This mistake leads to side effects affecting the respiratory organs and makes you easily tired and lose strength when jogging. The best way to do it is to inhale through your nose and exhale through your nose and mouth combined.
Exhaling through your nose and mouth helps you quickly get rid of CO2 and waste products. Practicing this method can be difficult, but you can move on to the next tip to run faster and prevent injury.
Focus On Posture
The posture also plays a very important role in getting the most oxygen. To help ease your body during movement, keep your head in line with your spine.
You should avoid tilting your head forward or backward. Besides, do not forget to relax your shoulders and avoid stooping or leaning forward.
Time And Rhythm
Learning how to breathe properly can help prevent persistent injuries from endurance running. Alternately exhale as your right foot and left foot touch the ground to avoid muscle imbalance.
Breathing rhythmically allows the body to put less pressure on the diaphragm and equalize the pressure exerted on the sides of the body. At the same time, it also contributes to improving your performance.
Respiring rate is the number of steps you take when inhaling and exhaling; 3:2 is the ideal rhythm because it works for everyone. Follow this pattern, allowing your body to act as you exhale alternately. Inhale for three-foot beats and exhale for the next two.
If we are running faster, we can use the 2:1. With this pattern, you will inhale for two steps and exhale for 1 step each. Pay attention to your puff to know what rhythm is most comfortable if running in a pattern is too much of a hassle.
How To Practice Breathing For Beginners
Practice Slowly
If you're a beginner, stick with this. When your physical strength increases gradually through practice, controlling your breath is no longer difficult. The body needs time to gradually adapt to new changes.
Initially, it would help to run slowly to practice breathing and control your breathing well. You can invite friends to run with you to talk while running; this is a way to check that your breathing is still regulated.
While jogging, if you feel short of breath, proceed to slow down or walk briskly to stabilize your breathing. Don't force yourself to follow a certain rule; choose the breathing style that feels most comfortable to you.
Breathing consumes energy, and respiring heavily can consume 10{4451f9e54643f917210ab7844964bcdf945fea7f074b622e5f6eabf441f0befc} of motor energy. This causes you to become tired quickly if you do not know how to breathe properly when jogging. To increase your oxygen intake during exercise, you can breathe faster or deeper.
Practice Regularly
To master the methods mentioned above, you need to practice regularly. You need to apply it to actual jogging, not just practicing breathing exercises.
Start planning the targets you want to achieve at least two months from now. This will be your motivation to prevent you from quitting. If you can run 3km now, you can run 6km in four weeks of practice.
On bad weather days, outdoor exercise becomes impossible, but don't let that interrupt your workout. Skipping a session can easily lead to more missed sessions, so go for a run at home or use a treadmill (if you have one) to maintain the habit.
Make A Specific Plan
The right exercise strategy helps protect you from injury, but it is also a way to improve your physical goals. Before practicing, make a careful plan and try to stick to it. For starters, on weekdays, run about 30 minutes on average. Then, on weekends, do a 4km run.
The most important part of this workout is running weekly at an easily attainable pace. That means you can speak in full sentences during the run while maintaining a regular rhythm during the exercise.
On the weekends, increasing the level to challenge yourself to feel the final stretch is quite difficult in running and respiring. Nevertheless, it's not so hard as to exhaust yourself. This will help build your strength and improve your endurance.
Choose An Area Full Of Fresh Air
For starters, avoid running next to busy roads and only run at times when pollution is at the lowest.
Even if you practice proper breathing in a polluted environment, you will still inhale large amounts of carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide is present in cigarette smoke and is also a common environmental pollutant in vehicle exhaust.
When there are too many toxic substances in the lungs, the pollution creates an inflammatory response in the airways. Regularly jogging in polluted air for long periods can lead to exercise-induced asthma.
Therefore, when you first begin to run, pay attention to the air quality forecast. It is best to jog indoors on a treadmill on bad weather days.
So which places should you choose?
Choose The Beach Every Morning
If you are lucky to live near the sea, it is best to choose this place to start your journey. This is the ideal place to breathe fresh air and warm up your body every morning.
There will be nothing better than practicing in an open space, surrounded by the sound of waves. You will surely find a feeling of excitement and refreshment, making the training process more active and increasing training performance.
Park
One of the ideal places for you to choose as a place to practice is in the park. The fun and fresh atmosphere at the park will make you feel more excited and mentally comfortable.
Rooftop
You can also choose the terrace as a familiar place to practice. Exercises combined with an airy, quiet, cool space will help you stay more focused and motivated. Breathing in the fresh air every morning is also a way to give you a more excited and refreshed spirit to start a new day.
But one point to keep in mind here is that too high locations can also have the opposite effect. Remember to opt for locations with moderate elevation.
Factors That Make It Difficult To Breathe When Running
Shortness Of Breath While Running
Shortness of breath, sometimes described as "air hunger," is a common respiratory problem, especially during vigorous physical activity. On average, 1 out of every four people who visit a respiratory clinic has difficulty respiring.
This symptom causes the patient to always be in a state of lack of oxygen, fatigue, chest tightness, difficulty breathing, and shortness of breath.
A healthy adult has a normal inhalation and exhalation rate of 20 times/minute (about 30,000 times/day). During vigorous exercise or cold weather, your breathing will be faster or slower, but you will not feel shortness of breath.
There are also other symptoms: Feeling suffocated, shortness of breath, chest tightness, heart palpitations, wheezing, coughing, etc.
Factors
There will be times when you are extremely tired and have respiratory failures during the run. It can be caused by many factors:
Terrain Altitude
The higher you go, the thinner the air and the higher the breathing rate. Therefore, when jogging in places with relatively high altitudes, such as hills, you will feel short of breath and have to breathe faster.
At this time, the amount of oxygen decreases, causing the acid level in the blood to change accordingly. This can put you in a dangerous, even deadly, state. If you intend to cross the mountain or conquer the peak, prepare by training your fitness level.
Weather
With the above guidelines, people usually start mainly with nose puffs. But very quickly switch to mouth breathing because that is the easiest way to draw air into the body.
While this brings more air to the lungs, it has more downsides than you might think. When you breathe in through your nose, the air is warmed and moistened by your nose. However, inhaling through the mouth while jogging can cause problems, especially in winter.
Cold, dry air can harm the respiratory tract because the nose cannot do its normal job of warming. This means the lower airways in the lungs have to do the job, leading to irritation.
Consequently, consider wearing a scarf around your face when jogging in the fall and winter. This helps to warm the air before it enters the respiratory tract, at the same time humidifying the incoming air.
Ideally, you can also avoid running early in the morning, especially on really cold days, because this is quite dangerous for the body, especially for the elderly. You can replace it by jogging indoors with an indoor treadmill to keep your body warm.
Asthma
Jogging is not an easy and convenient exercise for these patients. This particular exercise can cause some pressure on the body.
If the asthma patient frequently has episodes of shortness of breath, the best solution is to change to other types of exercise. The choice and place of exercise for people with asthma are very important because the patient is easily irritated with the environment.
The place that is said to be the best environment is still indoor exercise with a treadmill. The reason is that cold, dry weather is detrimental to asthma patients.
When jogging, runners often make the mistake of breathing rapidly through their mouth, which will lead to dry airways and inflammation. Thus, asthma patients should try their best to inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth.
Some things to keep in mind when practicing
- Exercise must be moderate
- After running, do not sit down immediately but should continue to walk for a while.
- Always keep breathing aids such as bronchodilators on hand when you exercise.
Although jogging is not the best exercise option, it does not mean that people with asthma cannot run. Besides jogging, we can practice indoors or choose a more suitable exercise such as walking, stretching, etc.
FAQs:
Why Do I Get A Stomach Ache When I Run?
Shallow, fast respiring is the most common cause of abdominal pain and flank pain, affecting your jogging performance.
How Do I Breathe Properly While Jogging?
If you’re a beginner, you should try to build up your stamina and strength slowly and not rush into running long distances immediately. Once you get the hang of the breathing technique, the running experience will become much more pleasant.
Is It Necessary To Learn How To Breathe While Jogging?
Breathing is extremely necessary because it helps you to no longer feel too fatigued and prolongs the running distance. Furthermore, regular respiration will be good for the heart and blood circulation.
What Is The Correct Way To Breathe When Running?
The best way to breathe when jogging is to apply the 3:2 breathing. To do this, you inhale through the nose for three running steps, then you exhale through your mouth in 2 steady runs.
How Should You Breathe While Running?
There are quite a few different ways to breathe. However, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth is the best way for runners. This will help balance your puffs and maintain endurance while practicing.
At the same time, this breathing technique ensures the optimal functioning of the nose and mouth organs, which is an advantage for the respiratory system.
Conclusion
Above is information about how to breathe while running. This technique is essential to pay attention to during exercise to ensure efficiency and safety for health.
The most standard way is to breathe evenly and naturally according to your perception. You can try the methods above and find out what works best for your body. Hope this article was useful to you. Thanks for reading.
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