Breathing Basics: Advice from Spartan Race Director of Sport, Joe DI

Just breathe. Chances are, you've heard that advice before. Chances also are, you're not doing it correctly. Whether you're involved in competitive sports and looking to maximize your performance, or just looking to feel better and more focused throughout your workday, breathing properly can help.

Joe DI, Director of Sport at Spartan Race, returns as our guest blogger for the third installment in a series of posts featuring his training expertise. This time, Joe discusses why breathing has become a focus of the performance world, why he ensures his athletes and coaches practice it, and how he integrates proper approaches to breathing into their routines in a practical way. In fact, studies have shown that diaphragmatic breathing can help workplace stress by reducing cortisol levels¹. 

Challenge yourself to follow Joe's guidance and focus on breathing the right way to improve your life, both on the field and off...

Consider a few things.

1. Breathing has been around way longer than we have been modern humans.
   
2. Breathing is something every body will figure out, no matter how dysfunctional it is.
   
3. However we choose to do it, we breathe 20,000 times per day.
   

Breathing is becoming a “trendy” subject, which is a good thing I guess, because most people are pretty bad at it.

To understand breathing, it is important to understand that breathing, perhaps more than any other system, is tightly entwined with the autonomic nervous system. Every inhalation is essentially an expression of the sympathetic, “fight or flight” nervous system. Every exhalation then, is an expression of the parasympathetic “rest and digest” system.

When we get stressed for any reason, we activate our “fight or flight” response. If we are chronically stressed, and most of us are, we are going to severely bias that branch of the nervous system, and indirectly, the muscles that control inhalation. Our postural muscles slowly adapt to make this dysfunctional breathing easier, which leads to bad posture—a round back and forward head.

When the sympathetic nervous system dominates, breaths are much shallower because the body is working to increase blood pressure and pulse in response to the stress. Less air volume enters the body and the lungs expand less. This in turn, decreases the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, decreases the reliance on a strong expiratory system, and decreases the need for the muscles of the torso to remain mobile to support an expanding diaphragm and rib cage.

All this is to say, the best thing we can do to help our breathing is to relax. Focus on taking deeper breaths, always emphasizing exhalations, listen to soothing music, take walks in the woods, do yoga, meditate, and practice forgiveness.

To kick start your breathing habits, and make sure your body does “remember” how to do it right, try this activation:

1. Shut your mouth. Nostril breathing is far more difficult to do in a sympathetically dominant state. I’ve taken this to the next level with myself, and many of my athletes, running 3-5 miles with my mouth full of water.
2. Breathe into your entire body. Do not breathe into your chest. Do not breath into your belly. I want 360 degree expansion of the torso and I am particularly focused on the back. Try this:
   1. Grab onto a pole, squat rack, or TRX strap at chest height.
   2. Keep your hands where they are, and drop into a squat so that your arms are outstretched and over your head, and your back round with your butt close to the floor. 
   3. Take 20 slow breaths in this position, or as many as you can without passing out, emphasizing exhalation and breathing into and expanding your back. Repeat in the morning, at night, whenever you are stressed, and as part of your warm up.

Don't have anything to hold onto? Give these breathing exercises a try:

 

I am obsessed with positional breathing for one reason - it fixes everything. Warm up with this move and spend half the time stretching those same muscles, over and over, that never seem to lengthen 😉 (snicker at the position of you must, if it works, it's worth doing.)

A video posted by Joe DI (@jdispartan) on Jul 20, 2016 at 12:59pm PDT

 

Deep breathing from tripod. When it comes to longevity in sport (or life in general) truly functional breathing reigns supreme. From tripod position, inhale and attempt to breathe all the way down to pelvic floor and into your kidneys. Hold. And release slow. Switch after 30-90s. Incorporate this in your morning routine, pre-workout, between sets, and/or as a cool-down.

A photo posted by Joe DI (@jdispartan) on Jun 20, 2016 at 10:50am PDT 

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References:

1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24959794