And breathe!

One of the biggest challenges people struggle to overcome with excertive exercise is their breathing. You have probably seen it before, someone is running along, struggling and breathing very quickly. This is what we clinician call apical breathing. This means they are only breathing from the top part of their lungs.

When we breathe through the top of our lungs, we are not getting as much air into our body as we need. Air provides us with Oxygen. Oxygen is vital in many aspects of our lives including providing the energy that our muscles need to work aerobically. Deprive our muscles of this oxygen and our body begins to work anaerobically (without oxygen) which means our body begins to fatigue, and quickly. You feel this as tiredness, cramps, stitches, for example.

What we need to learn through practice, is what we call basal breathing, or diaphragmatic breathing.

In short, this means learning to breathe through your belly! Try this test on yourself. Sit in a relaxed comfortable position, place one hand on your breast bone, and your other hand on your stomach.

Notice which hand moves. Chances are, it is the hand on your breast bone that is moving. What we need to do, is reverse this. We need to breathe through our belly and not apically.Try and keep your upper hand still and allow your belly to expand and hold. And relax. And repeat. if it helps, close your eyes. You will get the hang of it quickly. Then, can you replicate this without your hands on you? Keep practicing, it will become second nature to you. Now, when you are next out running and you feel yourself panting, try to put this into practice. Here are a few additional tips to help you get your breath back: Have a conversation with someone! This helps to regulate your breathing.

Take a deep breath in, hold it and allow all of your air to leave your lungs. This helps slow your breathing down and therefore reduce your panting.

Slow down a little! If you have gone into anaerobic exercise, your muscles will give up. Slow down a little, get your breath back and re-energise those muscles.

Keep yourself upright. It is too easy to allow ourselves to lean forward when we are tired, but this does worsen the problem. By leaning forwards, you push your abdominal contents upwards and this reduces the space in which the lungs have to enlarge! Like anything, this does take practice but it does work. Don't pant, take large, deep slow breaths and watch your posture!