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Part III: Cycling and Breathing

Unlike running, which I covered in the first post of this series, if you are cycling with proper form, the relaxation of your diaphragm during your exhale shouldn’t translate into potential injury in your legs. On the bike, your body should stay steady as you keep your core engaged (even on a stationary bike!) and use equal power around the course of your full pedal stroke with both legs working in parallel. As such, your primary focus when it comes to breathing on a bike ensuring that you are using your lungs to maximum potential. Your goal: deep breaths.

Deeper breaths mean that you’re using more of the capacity in your lungs, which moves more oxygen to your muscles. (For those of you who care about VO2 Max, don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that the deeper breathing actually increases oxygen uptake. I just mean there’s more in there to be “uptaken.” “Uptook?” Eh, you get the point.) Those deeper breaths mean that we’re still focused on the diaphragm: when that little wad of muscle below your lungs contracts down, your lungs open up and out. Just like you told your last ex, the diaphragm “needs some space” and can’t be boxed in if your lungs are going to reach their full potential. What does that mean for biking? Well, first of all, don’t squish your diaphragm! Posture impacts your breathing, both on and off the bike. Assuming you’re set up on your bike properly (check with your friendly MINT instructor to make sure you are in the spin room), you shouldn’t have any trouble during your warm up. But when the going gets tough, it’s common to inadvertently change your form in a way that just makes the ride tougher. Take a page from the history books (1836 in San Antonio, Texas to be precise) and “REMEMBER THE DIAPHRAGM!” to avoid hunching over the handlebars and mistakenly rolling in your tummy like a carnitas taco.

How to: When you’re on a road bike, you’ll need to balance your desire for being fast because you’re aerodynamic and being fast because you can still breathe. But as I tell my students, there’s no need to be aerodynamic in the spin room; as fast as your legs go, you still aren’t going anywhere, so feel free to give your diaphragm (and lower back!) a bit of a break by staying a wee bit more upright. With good form that allows the diaphragm to move, your next focus is, naturally, getting it to move. Focus on breathing into the bottom of your lungs. It may help to focus on feeling the breath in your back as well. Your lungs are 3D, after all, and your breathing should be, too!

I’ll talk more about deep breathing in the “breathing and yoga” post, but for cycling, it’s sufficient to check your breathing by putting one hand near your heart and one below your stomach. (Preferably while at a stop if you’re not on a spin bike!) You should feel the hand near your stomach move with or before the hand near your heart. Check in with your shoulders as well; if they are still moving up and down with each breath, odds are high that your breathing is too shallow and you aren’t engaging your full lung capacity. What’s the right pace? The pace that works for you. You may find it helpful to sync your breathing with the rate of revolutions in your pedal stroke, ideally with a longer exhale than inhale – or you may find that that’s just too complicated. So long as you are breathing fully and using the full power of your legs, you’re golden. Don’t overthink it beyond that; you want to still have headspace to enjoy the ride.

Mouth or nose? For most people, it doesn’t matter. But if you want to mimic the elite cyclists in a way other than wearing ridiculous (but hilarious) jerseys, you can try breathing through your nose as you exhale in order to slow your rate of exhale, giving your lungs a longer time to extract oxygen. (My thoughts in the first post about the red coffee stirrer still apply.)

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THE “JUST” BREATHE SERIES

Part II: Breathing and…. RUNNING

Do you run? Have you had a nagging injury on one side that just won’t go away? If so, it’s not an exaggeration to say that this technique I’m about to share with you will change your life. What’s the technique? Even-odd breathing. All you have to do is alternate between even and odd stepcounts as you inhale and exhale.

What do I mean? If you inhale for 2 steps, which is an even number, exhale over the course of an odd number of steps, like 3 or 5. Or if you inhale for 3 steps, which is an odd number, exhale over the course of an even number of steps, like 2 or 4. That’s it. Easy peasy.

Why does this matter? When you exhale, your diaphragm relaxes…and the rest of your body will want to follow suit. Your core will then become less stable and, in turn, the rest of your body is less stable and *voila* you are prime for injury… on that same side… where you’re always exhaling…because that’s just what you do naturally (or you read one of those well-intentioned but misguided blogs about even inhalesand exhales).

How to: If you’re still breathing in and out with the same step count for your inhale and exhale, STOP. Take your headphones off for a few runs and tune into your breathing. You’ll notice a difference on your first run with this technique. Within a few runs, this technique will become second nature. Play with the cadence of your breath until you find what works for you. Remember that, like all changes, this may take some practice. If you fall back into old patterns (even/even or odd/odd), don’t worry; just return your focus to your breathing and get your even/odd or odd/even groove back.

Also keep in mind that you can change up your breathing at any time as your speed or course change (e.g., a long uphill or your sprint home). Personally, I’m a “2 steps inhale-3 steps exhale” runner 90% of the time, sometimes with a 4-5 or 5-6 thrown in now and again for variety. Want a more technical description? Click here.

Mouth or Nose? Up to you. Yup, I also heard those tidbits about nasal breathing increasing CO2 saturation in the blood, but breathing through my nose while running seems like sipping coffee through one of those little red stirrers rather than just taking a gulp. I’ll save nasal breathing for other activities, thanks (more on those later in this series).

Bonus: You likely do even a mini warmup for your legs before a run (if not, you should). Why not warm up your lungs as well? For more on how that can improve your performance, check out this coverage of a University of Portsmouth study.