How to adjust your breathing while running

Running is the most common form of exercise in our daily life. It can be done anytime and anywhere, so it is very acceptable to everyone. Running has many benefits to the body. It can help lose weight, exercise the body, beautify the skin, and play an important role in overall body function. However, when exercising, we must also pay attention to adjusting our condition and breathing. So how do you adjust your breathing when running?

When running, consciously coordinate the rhythm of your feet with your breathing. Generally speaking, depending on your physical condition and running speed, you can inhale every two steps, exhale every two steps or inhale every three steps, exhale every three steps. When the breathing rhythm adapts to the running rhythm and becomes a habit, it can avoid rapid and shallow breathing and disordered rhythm, which is extremely beneficial for deepening the depth of breathing. At the same time, it can also reduce the fatigue of respiratory muscles and reduce the adverse reactions caused by the "extreme point" during running.

Breathe in through your nose while running. Breathing through your nose while running and coordinating it with your running rhythm can meet your body's oxygen needs. As the running distance and intensity increase, the oxygen demand increases. Switch to the breathing method of inhaling and exhaling through the mouth and nose. When inhaling and exhaling, the breathing should be slow, fine, and long. Exhale with your mouth slightly open. Avoid breathing quickly and heavily. When you breathe rapidly and feel short of breath while running, it is because you do not exhale fully, and carbon dioxide is not fully expelled, occupying the alveoli and limiting the intake of oxygen. If you want to increase the amount of exhaled air, exhale through your mouth and consciously increase the amount and duration of exhaled air.

The main purpose of breathing is to provide the human body with oxygen and eliminate excess waste gas. When the human body is at rest, it breathes about 10 to 12 times per minute, and the volume of each breath (tidal volume) is about 500 ml. That is to say, the respiratory exchange volume of the human body at rest is about 5 to 6 liters per minute. Although the body inhales as much as 1000 to 1200 ml of oxygen per minute, a 70 kg adult only uses about 300 ml of oxygen per minute. The human body's ventilation volume during maximum exercise can reach 100 liters per minute (about 20 times that of resting), but the human body's maximal oxygen uptake is only 3000 ml per minute. This phenomenon of increased respiratory exchange volume and reduced oxygen utilization rate seems to indicate that breathing is not the main limiting factor in human endurance performance.

Although the amount of oxygen exchanged by breathing (external respiration) is greater than that of the body tissues (internal respiration), for the respiratory circulatory system, neither the gas exchange in the lungs, heart rate, heart output per beat, blood flow distribution in the human body, nor venous return are physiological variables of human movement that can be controlled by consciousness.

Only the breathing method during exercise is an exercise physiological reaction that can be controlled by consciousness. Therefore, proper understanding of the correct breathing concept during running is also very helpful exercise physiology knowledge.

It is important to know how to adjust your breathing while running, which can help your sports shoes adjust the rhythm, so that you are less likely to get sports injuries and get the most out of the exercise. The above are some methods on how to adjust your breathing during exercise. You can learn from them. In future running, you should also pay attention to warm-up and some post-exercise adjustments, which will be better for your body.