I've said it before and I’ll repeat till you get it through
your thick skull, learn to breathe while you train. It is the single most
important aspect of physical and mental conditioning. It is the one thing that
keeps us alive more than anything else. You can go days without water, weeks
without food but a few minutes without breathing is killing you. The power of
the breath is essential as it can help you stay in the game far longer than if
you just started hyperventilating in the first couple minutes.
Breathing
helps you conserve energy and the more you practice it, the more energy is
reserved. Its power can be used any way you want if you know how to use it. It
can be used to help you in a strength exercise or it can help your endurance
over a period of time. Different athletes use different breathing patterns for
how they stay in their sport but the principles stay the same, if you can’t
conserve your energy, you won’t last very long. Learn to breathe and learn when
to use it to your advantage.
Deep breathing is an awesome way to keep your energy intact and granted sometimes if
you’re in a fight or in a match against another opponent or team your breathing
tends to be tested which is a good thing because you learn how to handle it
when it’s time to make it count. Even in a training session in the gym or your
home workouts, you want to learn how to breathe while you exercise and while
you’re in between sets because after a while it takes a toll on you so you
learn to keep your breathing as best as possible to keep going. It’s the reason it keeps you focused no matter
what you’re doing.
There are
tricks to help your breathing while you train. When I do my deck of cards
training, sometimes once I get to a certain part of the deck I have to keep my
breathing intact because it becomes so intense you have to take in as much air
as you can. After you do a set of push-ups or squats for example, although you
want to keep going without much rest as possible there’s that other part you
can use where you take in as many breaths as the number of reps for the next
set, that way you’re not taking up too much rest and you’re conserving your
energy. You can use this method for different exercises and different areas of
fitness. Another great trick I learned to keep your breathing at bay is what I
learned called the Hoffman Walk which was termed in Brooks Kubik’s books on the
adventures of the old-time strongmen Legacy Of Iron series, after you do a set
of an exercise, you walk and breathe deeply till you’re ready to tackle the
next set, you’re not sitting down and you keep moving without stopping so this
helps with your endurance.
