Breathing Correctly

Maximize Your Workouts By Breathing Correctly 

During a workout, your focus is most likely on completing the exercise at hand with good form.  And while that’s the most important part, there’s another part of the equation that often gets overlooked, proper breathing.  If you aren’t breathing correctly, it may reduce your results slightly.  

Breathing correctly is likely to help you burn a few extra calories every workout!

Learning to breath correctly takes practice, so don’t expect for this to change overnight.

Paying attention to your breathing during Grow Young Fitness workouts can really work for you.  It allows your body more control, keeping you calm and alert throughout your workout so you can actively engage all your muscles.  It might even give you the ability to do more.  

Practicing proper breathing will:

• reduce the amount of air you need to breathe in and out during given exercise
• help your muscles produce less carbon dioxide (making you feel less sore)
• improve blood circulation and heart health
• maximize your workout and fitness level

How to breathe for maximum efficiency:

• The general rule of thumb is to inhale through your nose or mouth, filling your stomach with air, right before the eccentric (muscle-lengthening) part of the motion. (This is the easy part of the motion.)
• Exhale during the concentric (muscle-shortening) part of the motion completely through your mouth. (This is the hard part of the motion.)

Examples:

Squats-  You should inhale just before you begin to lower down, and exhale as you extend your legs back to the starting position.

Overhead Arm Press-  Inhale as you bend your elbows down, and exhale as you push them back up.

Marching in place/moving side to side/no lifting movements-  Just breath normal. The key with the cardio portions is to NOT hold your breath.

It may be tempting to hold your breath during exercise, but don’t!

Making a habit of holding your breath can cause your blood pressure to rise, possibly resulting in dizziness or nausea. (If you get dizzy during a workout, it could be because you are holding your breathe.)

Instead, use your exercise as a time to practice breathing correctly. It does take practice!

Deep breathing at the end of each workout are important to complete each routine is it shown! It can lower your blood pressure, enhance relaxation, and may even play a role in how our bodies break down sodium.

Get connected to your breath with breathing techniques and become more aware of how and when to breath during your Grow Young Fitness workouts.  After some practice, it’ll become second nature, but it does take weeks/months/years of practice, especially if you have been doing it wrong.