Ethan Cannon

I was wondering where you got the idea to do nose breathing. A friend of mine told me I should be doing nose breathing.

I have been trying to do more of it, especially on easy runs, but when I try to pick up the pace, I sometimes panic and feel I am not getting enough oxygen and switch back over to breathing through my mouth. If I am able to get into a kind of a rhythm with the nose breathing I have no problem, even at a fast pace, but it is sometimes difficult to find that rhythm.

So I started reading a book about it. But I do find it really challenging as well. The reason I started doing it is actually that I am at sea level in the week leading up to a long race at altitude, and I am hoping this will help me stay prepared for that. I’m not sure it will. Maybe if nothing else it will help psychologically. But yeah at least on the first few days it has been really tough to do it and would be hard to keep it up if it doesn’t get easier.

Interesting...

Have you ever tried a high-altitude mask?

How about doing short sprints while holding your breath?

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/fitness/holding-your-breath-during-training-can-improve-performance/article38089753/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoventilation_training

But probably, if you are only going to be away from high altitude for one week, you probably won't lose any red blood cells that would hurt your performance. If you were going to be gone for a month, you might.

My friend told me to start breathing through my nose not to simulate decreased oxygen, but the opposite. My friend told me that by

breathing through my nose I would get better quality oxygen and thus better performance.

I have also been concentrating on becoming a better bottom breather (trying to fill the lungs from the bottom up using the diaphragm) than top breather (filling the lungs from the top).

I have found that by breathing with my nose if I get into a rhythm by taking a couple of short quick breaths in followed by a couple of breaths out I can keep it up for a long time.

However, if I hadn't had months of practicing this, I don't know if I would try this technique in a race. I think concentrating too much on my breathing my distract me too much from the race and would hurt my performance.

So my advice is just go out and run your heart out like you always do, and you will be fine.

Thanks. Yeah I am definitely not planning on racing like this. I am not sure I buy the idea that nose breathing increases vasodilation. Maybe it is true, but not enough to offset the fact that during the race, not being able to gulp down air would make racing really hard.

I have not tried a mask. I actually asked an exercise physiology professor about these questions. He didn't encourage nasal breathing, especially since altitude at Provo isn't too high (4500 feet - 1350 meters). I have not worked on bottom breathing yet but may in the future.