corporate health & performance prograM
Week 3
How you breathe matters… Continued
Building on last week, HOW you breathe is YOUR specific breathing pattern, and it is influenced by:
How well you move, your flexibility, your movement restrictions, your posture, and the coordination of your respiratory muscles.
The health of your energy systems, your cardiovascular and respiratory systems, and how your body uses energy.
Your stress levels and mindset.
This week continues to guide you towards the health of all the systems mentioned above, and builds on Nasal Breathing with the addition of Mouth Breathing to allow you to take conscious control and influence the same systems mentioned above. In this lesson you will learn WHEN it is most advantageous to use Mouth Breathing over Nasal Breathing, and WHY High Intensity cardio can improve the health of your cardiovascular, respiratory, movement, and nervous systems in ways Nasal Breathing is unable.
My BIG take home message this week is this:
THE QUESTION IS NOT WHETHER NASAL BREATHING IS BETTER THAN MOUTH BREATHING, RATHER THE QUESTION IS, “ARE YOU ABLE TO APPROPRIATELY MODIFY YOUR BREATH TO MEET THE DEMANDS YOU’RE EXPERIENCING.”
1
NASAL vs mouth BREATHING
2
breath shifting
FIND YOUR heart rate
3
HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING
Get comfortable and follow along with the videos below as I guide you through shifting your breath from nasal to mouth breathing to better meet the demands of high intensity cardio-respiratory training. Explore the complete video library for more options!
BREATH SHIFTing WARM UP
Nasal Breathing Shift Warm Up
Mouth Breathing Shift Warm Up
MOUTH BREATHING TRAINING & RECOVERY BREATHING
High Intensity Steady State Training
High Intensity Interval Training
High intensity training guidelines
HIGH INTENSITY STEADY STATE Beginning with a 5-10 minute Nasal Breathing warm up, build up and maintain a medium to high intensity activity with controlled mouth breathing only. In terms of difficulty, on a scale of 1-10, with ‘10’ being max effort, this should feel between a ‘7-9’. To achieve max health benefits, duration should remain between 1-2 minutes, nothing more, AND allow a complete 2-5 minute recovery in between each rep. Repeat x3-8 rounds. Total duration ~10-60 minutes.
HIGH INENSITY INTERVALS Beginning with a 5-10 minute Nasal Breathing warm up, build up and maintain a medium to high intensity activity with controlled mouth breathing only. Alternate intensity between medium to high tempo or pace and slow to completely stopping using a variety of activities with mouth breathing only. In terms of difficulty, on a scale of 1-10, with ‘10’ being max effort, this should feel between a ‘7-9’. To achieve max health benefits, intensity needs to be short and focused, and recovery is essential. Suggested intervals include:
10-40 seconds Fast : 1-3 minutes Slow/Active Recovery, repeat x3-10 reps. Total duration ~10-40 minutes.
1-2 minutes Fast : 1-3 minutes Slow/Active Recovery, repeat x5-15 reps. Total duration ~30-45 minutes.