Your Next Fitness Gains Starts with Your Nose

The cheapest easiest way to build your physical capacity without going harder is all in the nose. That’s right. How you breathe could be the key to your next breakthrough.

Our central nervous system and our breath have a reciprocal relationship. For example, when we exert our maximum effort we breathe maximally in and out of our mouths. If you want to test it, check your breathing while out running a worthy adversary. Now, if you laid on your back and mimicked the same over breathing in and out of the mouth that you’d do while being chased in the comfort of your living room, your central nervous system would internalize the same stress as being chased.

The opposite is true, also. 

If you breathe calmly in and out of your nose, you’ll soon find yourself in a relaxed, recovery state. 

You can’t be stressed if you’re breathing in and out of your nose slowly and you can’t be calm over-breathing in and out of your mouth. Period. 

The body, then, has breathe gears than range from rest and recovery and low intensity to full fight, flight, and max intensity that exists as follows:

1. Minimal breathing in and out of the nose. 
2. Vigorous in and out of the nose. 
3. Vigorous in the nose and out of the mouth. 
4. In and out of the mouth. 

If you reflect on your training, you’ve likely done a lot of it breathing intuitively which is great. And, as a result, there’s great low hanging fruit in your ability to build capacity in second gear. 

Instead of building max work capacity, you can increase your ability to do work in second gear and truly reserve mouth breathing for the efforts that require it. 

Try it!