How Mindful Breathing Can Elevate Your Training

Hello and welcome to the Athletes Compass podcast where we navigate training, fitness and health for everyday athletes. Today we're talking about breathing. It's one of those natural functions that we do without thinking, but what if your breathing patterns can help your performance as an everyday athlete? Paul, how does your breathing affect your body and mind?

Mm -hmm. Yeah. So again, let's just think really basic. Without our breathing, we wouldn't be able to exchange the two primary gases that we need for respiration or metabolism. So first of all, we're ventilating our lungs. We're taking a breath in to take on our oxygen for transport into the blood. And then likewise, we're removing the carbon dioxide.

that is been a metabolic byproduct ultimately and a buffer for the body. that carbon dioxide removal is equally as important. So that's the primary way that it's affecting the body systemically. But interestingly, it also seems to have this mindful aspect to breathing as well.

And it goes back to, know, and I'm certainly no expert here, but just a bit of a hack and, you know, have my own sort of self interest in the mindfulness aspect of breathing. And yeah, it also tends to play some sort of role in keeping us present. It's something that it seems we can lock into in any given moment.

to be, you know, a word we'll use today, mindful. And that's, yeah, that's sort of the secondary, the secondary purpose is to be mindful and present. Because yeah, it actually has like, it has both this voluntary and involuntary control. before you, before I even said those words, and you're listening to this podcast, your involuntary system was just.

breathing as it does and it still is right now. But at any given moment, we can voluntarily control our breath. And when we take that voluntary moment to control our breath, we have to become mindful and present in doing that. And this is where things can kind of slow down. We can slow our monkey mind down a little bit, control things, and be mindful.

Can you explain what mindfulness is and why is it important for endurance athletes?

Yeah, I think, well, it's interesting you asked this question because the podcast I recorded just before this one was with Johannes Butcher. And Paul actually put me on to Johannes because Paul wanted to know how basically we can control our or help to

enhance our longevity and our wellness. And Johannes is an expert in that whole area of exercise and aging. And it was so interesting. One of the points that he really made in the podcast was, you know, we always think about, about exercising and you we, we've got to keep moving, right? And this is what Athletica is all about, right? It's a, it's a training plan, automated AI that, you know, gives you this ideal

exercise to rest, sort of pause. And we're always harping on about the movement aspect. You've got to exercise more. You've got to do HIIT exercise. You've got to get in the gym. got to get out there and do your L2 session. But the point that Johannes made that was really interesting to me was around the importance of the recovery aspect. We say it a lot, but he was really getting into the hardcore science in explaining why.

He was explaining it to me in terms of stressors and this concept called hermesis. And basically that if you don't have this calmness and this rest period in between those signals of exercise training, you don't adapt and the stressors keep going and they keep stressing you. And they actually, you create more of a problem than a solution.

So mindfulness allows us to be present, to be calm, and to receive the exercise stressors that we know are so beneficial for all of the things, again, that we spoke of to Johannes on the podcast.

enhancing your VO2 max, increasing your muscle strength, improving your balance, lowering your chances of getting a chronic illness like cardiovascular disease or cancer or Alzheimer's. All these things are important. So if you can be mindful, you can control that stress, receive the good stress, become more resilient to it and enhance your exercise performance and

Yeah, totally. Like, when you do meditation, they often say like, you're being present with with your inhale, then have a pay attention to that pause after your inhale, then exhale, have a have a, you know, like focus on the pause. And it's actually in the pause that the gas exchange happens, right?

don't actually know the answer to that question. I think it's basically we see a change in what's called partial pressures. So there's these pressures of these gases in both our body and in the atmosphere and in the process of ventilating or breathing

there is all of a sudden sort of this change of that partial pressure. Because as you breathe, then the pressure changes. At the exact pause phase, like, you we can do this, we can do this together, right? We can take a breath in. And, you know, there's a period of time at the top of that breath where there's still, everything's in dynamic flux always, right? So we've taken in the atmospheric

you

air, which has a high partial pressure of oxygen, and we've brought that into our lungs to a region of lower partial pressure of oxygen, higher partial pressure of carbon dioxide, and then there's that exchange that occurs. I think it's always kind of occurring. It's always in dynamic flux, but it's always kind of going from high to low, these partial pressures, oxygen and CO2. So yeah, I don't know if there's one actual place, but it's always kind

fluxing

Right. But I think what they are trying to teach with the meditation is to pay attention to those pauses. we can take the same principle and apply that to training as well.

pauses when you actually recover are important. And being mindful.

about not just the training aspects, because we're all very good at like following the instructions and following your training prescription. But then we forget about, you know, recovery, pay attention to the recovery so that you can actually, you know, go and do your next session with better quality. And I see this all the time, like as a busy people.

human beings, we forget to pay attention to that

we do. is again, this is what Johannes and I were talking about. It's like we all, the only thing everyone is focusing on really mostly is the, is the exercise training and you know, kind of doing more. But, and it was, you know, again, I'll, I'll, I'll keep reflecting on this because you know, this was really, this was Paul, I got to, I got to thank you again for telling me to go after Johannes. It was, it was, was great. It was super interesting,

you know, there's basically VO2 max or cardiorespiratory fitness, right? We want to hold onto that. You know, if we look to Peter Attia's Outlive book, he's clearly, there's no doubt about it. You want to try to keep your VO2 max higher than your age for as long as you can kind of thing, right? Like that's sort of my goal these days. But there's these two critical periods of time in life.

where we see larger rates of decline of Viotimax. One is kind of this age between 35 and 45, really falls. The other one seems to be 60 to 65, really steep declines we see if we kind of follow the literature as a whole, the research literature as a whole. Why those periods of time? Why 35 to 45? Why 60 to 65?

Think about it, 35 to 45 high stress times in life usually, right? You're really, you you're trying to do so much, fit so much in, you've got kids often, you're really trying to punch it in work because it's usually your prime time for kind of earning at those ages. Well, and all of that stress doesn't allow you very much to recover in those times. And as a result,

You're not, again, it's a strong indicator that those, at that period of time when stress is so high, it supports the hypothesis that we're just saying. There's not a lot of time for mindfulness and relaxation and recovery to be able to accept any sort of stressors. You're probably not also able to find the time to get out and train as well. But the combination of the two is just kind of

pretty profound for that reduction in VO2 max in cardiorespiratory fitness that we know is so important for health, longevity and performance. So yeah, I'm not sure where I was going with this, but it's like, it just supports kind of the importance of mindfulness and meditation in the whole process that we're working on and being more efficient and better humans.

So to go back to how you originally were talking about breathing, know, voluntary and involuntary, we can breathe without mindfulness, but mindfulness requires more practiced breathing. Is that kind of where you're, what you're saying?

Well, I think they kind of go hand in hand. So I think when you're meditating, you can meditate on anything. as far as I understand, you can enhance the process of mindfulness if you follow your breath. It's usually the way to kind of start the whole process and slow the monkey mind down.

Right? So it's like, it's a good thing to do for say five or 10 minutes a day at some period of time. Could be before you try to fall asleep or at some point in the day, but you can start by just following your breath. And I think Marjaana is going to explain box breathing potentially as one way. So why don't you explain box breathing for us,

Yeah, so box breathing is... There are a few different ways to do it, but usually like when I started it was four, count of four, breath in, so breathing in and count to four, then hold your breath for count of four, then exhale for count of four, and then at the bottom, if you look at it, it's like a box, at the bottom hold your breath for count of four.

So, and as you get better at breathing and holding your breath, you can add to five. So count to five, count to six and extend. And I find like, this is what I do. Like I do it in the morning. And then if I have a monkey brain, I try to do it during the day. And especially in the evening before going to bed, it really

with their raising thoughts

Totally. And if again, if you're under a period of high stress, if you wake up in the middle of the night, that's another perfect time to box breathe and just, you know, as opposed to getting up. Oftentimes, if you sit there and box breathe and meditate, you will fall back to sleep. So again, you can enhance the amount of sleep that you're getting that we know is so important as opposed

God forbid reaching for your phone.

wherever that's laying in the, you know, that would just be, that's the worst thing that you can do because you're adding blue light, you're totally waking yourself back up again, right? Like, yeah, we, you know, you get rid of those, get rid of those, meditate on those problems as well, or yeah, and breathing is the, I guess the first step. So I think that answers the first part of your question there, Paul. So that's, you know, we're grabbing hold of the present through the, through the breathing and it's hard to do, right? It's hard to

paying attention to that breath. Like it's so easy to just say it, but you go and try, like your mind will soon wander. The monkey mind wants to fall off the track. So I think meditation per se, as opposed to, I guess, meditation, meditation would be almost the focus on the thoughts that are appearing in the mind at any given time. So as I understand it, so it's like, you

If you do that box breathing that Marjaana was saying, you're focusing on the four seconds and the breath. But then it won't be, you know, too, too, it won't be a few seconds before another thought comes in. So what you can do is you can almost observe that thought, or you could observe that feeling, whatever, you know, whatever might be coming into your mind at that point in time.

You look at it, look back at it. Another cool thing you can do is you can look at the looker. So you can look at what is looking at that, you know, that sensation and that's coming to your mind at that point in time. That's another thing that you can do. And that's a nice little trick I've found helps me get control of my monkey mind a little bit as well. you know,

I don't know if I'm answering the question, but think mindfulness and meditation is playing with the thoughts that are in your head and to get control of

being present and control of that recovery

You said something interesting there.

look at the looker. Can you explain that more?

I'm forgetting the name of the person that I picked up. It was John Kelly potentially. It was in the Sam Harris podcast, but it was a mindfulness guru and he had this really cool way of getting you to look at the looker. So you went through various different means on the waking up

from Sam Harris. yeah, he just kind of, know, something's looking at whatever's going on right now. You're listening to this podcast, you are, you know, there is something that is looking or seeing or hearing what we're saying. So who's hearing? You look back at that. You look back at that at any given moment. And what that is, I'm not sure, but it is a fascinating kind of concept.

You know, and it allows you though to be present, to be mindful and to just be in the zone ultimately when you look back at the looker. So it's a pretty, it really helps me get control of my monkey mind.

I'm teaching a yoga class,

often start, we are in a seated position, but we're trying to focus on our breathing. I have done meditation and yoga for a lot of years and I really struggle with it because my brain is so ADHD that it's hard to focus on anything. And so what we try to do in the moments of before, as we start classes thinking of our

breath as kind of a cone that starts in your nose and in your nasal cavities and the tip of the cone, your belly expands and your back expands as you inhale. And then the exhale is relaxing that and being passive. So it's an active inhale and a passive exhale. And that's something that I do often too in the middle of the night when I wake up, but that is

Another way, you know, that's getting at your, your diaphragmatic breathing of, know, that your diaphragm is at the, you know, the L the spot right where your rib cage comes together and it expands. And we often try to in the yoga class, imagine is if that diaphragm was, was a balloon and as you inhaled, it expanded your belly and down into your hips. And that's another way of kind of helping

feel through or imagine through that belly breathing. helps you calm your whole nervous system down. That's a way that has worked for me personally and works for the class as

I remember, so I think from the book, James Nestor, Breathe is an excellent one too.

yeah.

to get

and I'll just, a couple of the key points, like many of we've already sort of spoken on, but a couple points, breathing through the nose is very parasympathetically stimulating. So as opposed to mouth breathing, if we, one way you can switch up your breathing is to breathe through your nose and just that, even that process and just try it right now, try breathing through your nose versus taking a mouth breath. And one, you'll notice clearly one is more calming than the

So nose breathing, obviously you want to work on that as much as you can. Even when you're doing your recovery L1, L2, the more you can nose breathe, the better. That almost kind of controls, unless you've got nasal passage issues, which I used to have, had surgery for it. so I was hit by a car in a trathlon actually, and it shattered my zygomatic arch and my face. Anyways.

20 years later, I went to the doctor to get it looked at and he asked me, were you a boxer in your youth? I said, no, I wasn't, but I was hit by a car and smashed. yeah, and anyways, had that surgery opened up my nasal passages and what a difference, right? So I'm always able to breathe through my nose now, but not everyone is for various different reasons. Worth seeing a Western medicine for that one, let me tell you. So nose breathing, fantastic.

what are some of the other, messages in that one? actually like even like, a larger breath in, right? Like, so like, like Paul said, so a breathe in, to like full breath, there's increased ventilation, that's actually occurring. So a larger amount of oxygen gets perfused, diffused into the bloodstream from those higher,

breathing, ventilation, what am I looking for? Like a maximal breath in kind of thing, right? You can ventilate areas of the lung that don't usually get ventilated and this can enhance the oxygenation of your bloodstream. So those are, think, some of the two big ones. And then the fact that all of this is trainable. So the things

that Paul's talking about, like breathing and mindfulness, but even things like, we've spoken on other podcasts about the Breathe Way Better Bag and increasing our respiratory muscle strength to breathe deeper. This enhances our VO2 max at high respiratory flow rates.

So there's lots that can be done in the whole area of breathing to enhance both our mindfulness and our cardiorespiratory fitness and performance.

So let's look at what are the specifics that athletes can do. What are some of the challenges that athletes face when starting a mindfulness practice and how can they overcome

started meditating about four years ago following an app, Calm app, and it's helped a lot. can't bring myself to, you know, bringing myself to meditate 10 minutes without it. So I use it. And even with that, it's so hard to keep your mind from running away.

But usually they teach you different techniques to keep your mind with the breathing, which is great. But I've also started to experiment with walking meditation. So I go for a walk and I listen to a meditation that helps me so much more because I'm moving, I'm used to moving, right? So moving your body just rhythmically like walking is amazing. Like I can stay focused a lot longer and

gained more benefits, I would say, than sitting down meditating and struggling the whole time.

But I also enjoy swimming because I'm under the water and it's just me and the line and it's very meditative for me. And I would encourage everybody to try challenge their breathing with, know, breathing to every three stroke, every five and increase that because it's

helping you also with the respiratory muscles. So if you normally breathe to every three strokes, extend that to five and then play around next time, maybe you can do half a pull length with breathing to every seventh and up to nine. Like I can do up to nine, but that's still a little bit of a struggle. But you can see when you start getting better at it.

you can extend it from five to seven. Seven starts to feel nice and not easy but easier than before. Then you extend to nine. I love that one. That's always fun to do at the end of a session.

Those are great, Marjaana. I play around with those as well with my swimming, with my walking. I would also say the same with my easy rides, my L1, L2 recovery rides, the same sort of thing. just, inevitably, whatever problem I've had, it's gone after 20 to 30 minutes of just moving and riding. So there's something about movement that's so beneficial for the mind.

Even though as a pure physiologist, I always talk about the physiology behind it all, yeah. Ultimately, I think we can conclude, and it's a key point, that the mind and the body are 100 % linked. And then this podcast is a clear example of that. Yeah, I think the only other one I would add is that even also doing VO2 max type sets, whatever VO2 max

set is your flavor, almost by default, you need to focus on the intensity and you need to, you can also be focusing on your respiratory muscles. In a VO2 set by default, when you're in the red zone, you want to be ventilating quite quickly. There should be purposeful ventilation that's actually occurring.

And it's no wonder that we almost always feel better after we've done a high intensity interval training session, right? Because you've had to be present to achieve the objective of that. And there's just these, there's all these endorphins and whatnot that are released, but also you've had to be mindful for that whole time. You've had to be purposeful in pushing out the power or pace that you're after and your respiration

rate and depth has had to be very, very high as well. You've ventilated new areas of the lung that you haven't in the past. again, it's whether you know it or not, you have to almost be, you're going through a form of mindfulness at that point in time when you're doing your red zone work.

And I've also noticed that in practicing with the breathing bag, because I have the same one, the Breathe Right bag, is that that helps me

breathe more into my belly. You're breathing through your mouth in that case, not through your nose, but you're breathing through your mouth. If I can breathe through my belly and practice breathing more

quickly, that helps with the VO2 max efforts so that I'm still breathing through my belly and not just up through my chest where I'm here, I'm still able to, and that really encourages a lot of the mindfulness as well, even in

Exactly.

even in that kind of a stressful situation.

So here are our three takeaways for this week. know, breathing, you know, it shows us that your mind and body are linked and that athletes can improve their focus and concentration during training, during racing with, with focused breathing. And we'll have a podcast episode about that coming up. But number two, the purposeful breathing can, the, the mindful breathing can help us really improve our stress management.

reduce anxiety, but it takes practice and it takes time to build up that effectiveness. We can't just learn it at once. We need to practice that on a daily basis. then finally, mindfulness

improves our capacity to recover from our hard efforts, which allow us to increase our fitness, increase our VO2 max so that we can take on that training stress.

That is all for this week. Thank you for listening and join us next week for the Athletes Compass podcast. Ask your training questions in the comments and our social media. Thank you for taking a moment to give us a five -star review. Paul, Marjaana and I are professional endurance sport coaches with limited availability. Contact us in the links below in the show notes to set up an appointment to talk about your training. For Marjaana Rakai, Dr. Paul Laursen I'm Paul Warloski, and this has been the Compass podcast.