What a fantastic weekend! This may have been the best couple of days of skiing all year. Warm, sunny, great snow, awesome people, and cool experiences. While relaxing on the patio for our apres-ski beer, I noticed something that’s very relevant to your health, well-being, and personal performance (NO, it’s not some health tip about beer). It’s related to proper breathing or else called “deep belly breathing”.
You see, I’m a movement geek.
I watch people move for a living and notice many things about people beyond what a casual observer would see. My wife constantly wonders why I can’t seem to see that the house needs cleaning, but that’s another story.
As we were sitting on the deck, completely relaxed, I noticed a man beside our group who had a flawed breathing pattern.
Even though completely relaxed and enjoying a beer on a patio, he was breathing through his chest. I could see his neck muscles firing to help out, and his chest was rising and falling instead of his belly.
You are probably wondering why this matters.
As you know, breathing is fundamental to life. What many people fail to realize is that breathing has a tremendous impact on our:
- Metabolism
- Moods
- Emotions
- Focus
- Relaxation
- Core function
- Back pain
- Overall performance
This list is just scratching the surface. We all know breathing is essential for life, and kids do it naturally.
As adults, we let our life, experiences, injuries, and ailments derail our breathing, and it’s having a massive impact on our health and happiness.
Even though the man on the deck was “relaxing”, his breathing pattern was shifting his nervous system to a “fight or flight” response, and switching his metabolism from a relaxed “fat-burning” state to using carbohydrates for fuel.
This is one of the most noticeable observations when we run one of our Resting Metabolism Assessments on clients. A person’s “fuel profile” (how much fat/carbs they are using) changes on a moment-to-moment basis and is highly influenced by thoughts and breathing.
Crazy, but true!
The simple change of learning “belly breathing” can quickly reduce stress levels, improve your fat burning capacity, and provide greater tolerance to stressors in all areas of life.
On the physical activity side of things, breathing and core control are highly connected.
One of the first things we teach clients at our studio is to properly “breathe and brace”.
This means, can you stabilize and control the forces through your body while properly breathing.
Ready to learn more about the movement? Register for our Movement Foundations Course and learn how to perform the movement correctly and maximize your daily activities!
Most people relax their core when breathing.
This may work fine during Savasana (corpse pose in Yoga), but for anything outside of this position, the core muscles need to be active, AND you still need to breathe effectively. I just had a client this morning and we spent the entire session working on his breathing patterns in a variety of loaded and unloaded positions.
Most people wouldn’t think of it as a “workout”, yet he was extremely challenged during the session.
We tend to forget (or don’t know) how important our breathing is to our performance. It’s typically seen as something necessary for survival, but there is MUCH more beyond that. In my book The Fitness Curveball, I have a section on breathing.
If you have questions or would like to know more about belly breathing and core function, book a FREE Complimentary Success Session with us. My team and I would love to help!
These skills are not about the gym. They are the foundation of all movement inside and outside the gym.
Happy Breathing!
