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I've heard it said you should inhale thru your nose and exhale thru your mouth while running...why?
What about inhaling thru your mouth during a run and exhaling also thru the mouth? Would that be better or worse than inhale thru nose/exhale thru mouth?
I do not know what the correct way is but sometimes I hold my breath and stop breathing while jogging to see how it feels, I can only last like 1 min the most, when I started jogging I was breathing hard from the mouth but now I don't anymore
Inhaling through your nose allows for a deeper intake of air than does breathing in through your mouth, and it also lessens the chance of gagging on your saliva as you can do when intaking air up through your esophogus. Nose breathing should be easier, unless of course you have a cold, or or suffering from allergies or a sinus condition; or a deviated septum. Contrary to popular belief, though, it IS perfectly Ok to breathe through your mouth if you wish.
As far as breathing tempo: usually a "four-count method" is best. This is done with two breaths in, floowed by two out, making for an "in-in-out-out" (four-count) rythym. It's also a bit better to make the second "in' breath a bit deeper than the first. And also make the second "out" breath a bit deeper than the first "out" breath. The deeper second "out" breath allows you to take in a deeper breath following it.
Hope this helps. (I ran h.s varsity track for three years and it wasn't until I ran in college before I learned the proper breathing technique! LOL)
Hmmm, well . . . I too was a varsity track man in h.s., and no one ever bothered with trying to breathe in a certain way. It seems to come naturally to breathe both in and out through the mouth during heavy physical activity. Though I've never tried the nose-mouth kind of breathing DURING heavy exertion (am familiar with doing this as part of cooling down, and have had mixed results), I question whether you can really take in a large enough volume of air through the nose alone during heavy exercise. So you might want to try the nose-mouth technique if you feel like experimenting, but if you find that this just does not feel right, I'm guessing that my old teammates from a team that won a state championship one year (yep, true) would agree with me that the natural tendency to breathe through the mouth, both in and out, works pretty well.
Drummer boy, yes I do have a deviated septum and have learned that breathing in thru the mouth seemed to yield better results, though someone tried telling me breathing thru the nose was to prevent hyperventilation.
Exhaling through your mouth allows your body to expell more Co2, while breathing in through your nose allows a nice intake of oxegen, it's easier to fill your lungs then to expell.
I have done a fair amount of reading on running over the past couple years in my quest to win my local 5ks, 10ks, etc, and I don't remember reading anything about breathing techniques. I looked in the index of a couple books I have. Tim Noakes does have a page about breathing from the diaphram in his massive (and excellent) Lore of Running. Lore of Running - Timothy Noakes - Google Books
Brad Hudson, noted distance running coach doesn't mention breathing techniques in his (also excellent) book Run Faster. My suggestion is don't worry about it; just let nature take its course. My guess is that if anything, worrying about breathing could upset your focus and do more harm that good.
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