How you breathe while exercising matters. Learn the best breathing techniques for each type of workout and how they can impact your performance.
Unless you’re regularly swimming laps, you might not pay much attention to your breath. And yet, this physiological process is involved in practically everything you do, whether you’re sitting at your desk, running through your neighborhood, or lifting heavily loaded barbells.
“The overall role of respiration is to provide oxygenated blood throughout your body, which is needed for every chemical reaction — including the reactions we need for exercise,” says Rachelle Reed, MS, PhD, ACSM-EP, an exercise physiologist. “We oftentimes need the presence of oxygen to create fuel to move the skeletal muscles or to replenish the oxygen right after.” During aerobic exercise, for instance, your body uses oxygen to create adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is the main energy source for cells.
When your body is at rest, you have a slower respiratory rate of about 12 to 15 breath cycles per minute. Once you start exercising, that respiratory rate jumps up to about 40 breath cycles per minute, depending on the intensity of your workout and your personal fitness level, says Reed. “The need for getting oxygen to the tissues increases as the intensity of exercise increases,” she notes.
As your breathing rate and heart rate pick up, you’ll reach your first ventilatory threshold — the point at which it’s difficult to carry on a conversation while exercising. “That’s the point where it becomes harder for the person to maintain consistency with breathing, where the inhales are going to start to be longer than the exhales,” says Reed. “You’re starting to reach a point of fatigue that's not a sustainable pace.”
With continuous exercise, your respiratory and cardiovascular systems become more efficient, so you’re able to do the same level of work at a lower ventilation rate, says Reed. “You're so much more efficient at getting oxygen where it's needed and also at getting rid of the carbon dioxide, the waste product from all those chemical reactions,” she adds. You’ll also be able to work at greater intensities before reaching your ventilatory threshold. An untrained person might feel like it’s challenging to talk while on a long incline walk, while a more experienced individual may need to jog up that hill in order to feel a bit out of breath.
However, how you breathe — not just the fitness of your cardiorespiratory system — can influence your performance, too. Here, Reed shares tips for better breathing while exercising, no matter your choice of workout.
Practice Diaphragmatic Breathing during Your Workouts
You can think of diaphragmatic breathing as taking a 360-degree breath, says Reed. “When you inhale, you’re actively contracting the intercostal muscles around your ribcage, so you're not only inflating the chest but also the top of the belly and around the sides around the back,” she explains. Essentially, your shoulders and collarbones shouldn’t be the only parts of your body “lifting” as you fill up your lungs with air, she notes.
This type of breathing doesn’t always come naturally, but it enables you to move a greater volume of air in and out of the lungs — and thus be able to supply your muscles with more energy-producing oxygen, says Reed.
Folks who aren’t used to diaphragmatic breathing should initially practice the technique while at rest. Start by lying on the floor with your knees bent and feet flat on the ground. Place one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly. “As you breathe in and out, see if you can minimize the movement in the hand that's on the chest and really maximize that movement in the hand that's placed on the belly to show the difference between diaphragmatic and shallow breathing,” says Reed.
Once you’re able to successfully breathe diaphragmatically at rest, start practicing it while exercising to ensure you’re supplying your muscles with adequate amounts of oxygen. You’ll also want to spend some time on diaphragmatic breathing after a tough set or a particularly challenging workout, which are more likely to trigger those short inhales, says Reed.
Keep Your Breaths Consistent
When doing aerobic training, such as running, cycling, or rowing, try to keep your breath consistent, suggests Reed. In other words, aim to keep the duration of your inhales and exhales the same. You might breathe in for two to three seconds, then exhale for the same amount of time, she notes. If counting is difficult, try connecting your breath to your movement. “If you're running, you might inhale every second strike of the right foot,” she adds.
If you’re taking a lot of short inhales and are barely exhaling while exercising — aka hyperventilating — you’re likely to fatigue very quickly, says Reed. “That's not sustainable for very long because of the energy systems used to generate that kind of movement,” she adds.
When you hit the point where you can’t keep your inhales and exhales consistent, reduce your intensity to allow yourself to catch your breath. Then, do 30-second intervals at the more challenging effort to build up your tolerance, suggests Reed.
Don’t Worry about Breathing Nasally vs. Orally
When you’re working at all-out efforts, it’s going to be nearly impossible to breathe out through the nose, says Reed. “You need to force the carbon dioxide out to be able to suck more oxygen in next,” she explains. The problem: You’re not able to move nearly as much volume of air out of your nose as you can through your mouth, says Reed.
As you become more well-trained, breathing nasally at higher intensities may become easier, says Reed. “If you think about what's happening from an anatomy point of view, you're inhaling through the nose and mouth, and the air is going down through the larynx, into the bronchi, and then into the alveolar sacs, where the gas exchange like actually occurs,” she notes. “All of that is getting trained as you exercise more, becoming more efficient at the gas exchange, so you might still be able to pull it off with less volume going in and out."
Some research shows that nasal breathing can increase running economy, which is linked with faster racing times, and time to exhaustion. But it can take anywhere from 10 weeks to six months to successfully learn how to breathe nasally and for it to feel comfortable while running, according to a review published in Frontiers in Physiology. Essentially, breathing only through your nose while exercising may be beneficial, but don’t stress if you need to breathe orally to give your muscles the oxygen they need.
Choose the Right Breathing Technique While Lifting
During resistance training, it’s typically recommended to exhale while your muscles contract (think: while pulling a dumbbell up to your shoulder during a biceps curl) and inhale while they lengthen (think: while lowering the dumbbell back to your thighs), says Reed. When practiced quickly, this technique can help you generate more force, according to the American Council on Exercise.
However, the opposite may be recommended in certain scenarios. Folks who have pelvic floor issues may be advised to inhale on the effort during barbell back squats, for instance, to reduce the amount of pressure on the musculature (along with using a lighter load), Reed says. When in doubt, listen to your body, take note of any discomfort, and adjust your breathing technique if necessary.
You’re best off using the Valsalva maneuver — taking a diaphragmatic breath, then trying to push that air out while keeping your mouth and nose closed — while heavy lifting. This breathing technique increases intra-abdominal pressure, which can help stabilize the spine during resistance training, research shows. The maneuver has also been found to reduce the amount of time in the concentric phase (while the muscle is contracting) and time spent in the “sticking region” of the one-rep max bench lift. In other words, the Valsalva maneuver may help you complete your reps quickly and with ease.