I caught an interesting item about Breathing on radio 2 last Sunday, while driving back from Kent. James Nestor was on talking about his new book: 'Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art' which was based on 10 years of research inspired by his having attended a 'breathing class'.
One of the things he mentioned was how bad breathing through your mouth is for you, compared to breathing through your nose - given that the nasal passages are designed to filter out all the shit in the air, that they warm up the air before it enters your lungs, and it means you breath differently compared to mouth breathing, enabling you to expel more carbon dioxide.
He explicitly mentioned that most people doing exercise (such as running) breath through their mouths (I know for a fact I do) and he suggested people should instead switch to nasal breathing while exercising.
So I tried this in on my Monday morning run last week, or at least for half of it - when I remembered half way round I wanted to try an experiment with nasal breathing.
It was pretty horrendous - I managed about 800 metres and then had to revert back to mouth breathing. I felt like I just couldn't quite get enough air into my lungs, and I was tending to fill my upper lungs rather than my lower lungs (normally I belly breath naturally after years of practice).
I did manage to get back to nasal breathing for most of the final KM (KM 6 of 6) but it took a real effort of will to stay calm, force proper lung action and just generally stay oxygenated properly.
It probably didn't help that my sinuses were slightly congested, not outrageously so, but after a lot of snot-blowing and hard sniffing, they were a lot less congested by the time I'd finished the run.
I also ended up with a bit of a mild headache afterwards, which I don't usually get after a run!
So it was also pretty messy, beard and all.
I did a little bit of online research after, and it turns out the consensus opinion is breathing through your mouth for intense exercise is the only way you can get enough oxygen into your system, during times of peak intensity.
This Runners Connect article' clearly states that mouth breathing is best for running.
'How to breath properly when running by Very Well Fit' says mouth for higher intensity.
This item my Map My Run is even called 'how nose breathing can make you a faster runner' but says you have to breath through your mouth during intense sessions.
I guess that explains my struggles on Monday - my run was 'medium-hard' intensity - certainly not easy - and I think nasal breathing would be fine for easy runs where you could talk to people, but probably not for my usual training runs, which tend to be harder.
I forgot to experiment further on Weds and Friday - probably my subconscious telling me to just forget it and mouth breath while running!
Not that I won't experiment more - but based on my experience so far, and based on the fact that most of the above articles don't dismiss nose breathing for lower intensity training, and they are responding to the claim that 'nose breathing is best', I'm inclined to believe that mr James Nestor, the dude who wrote the breathing book, maybe doesn't do that much intense exercise?
This weeks runs:
Three runs this week:
- Monday - longer and slower (Up to 6Ks)
- Wednesday - 4Ks worth of 'reasonable' intervals
- Friday - 4K at a reasonably fast pace, and I upped my warm up from 800 metres to 1.2 KM.
I track most of my runs with Garmin, which auto uploads to Strava.
Weekly running summary:
- Total kilometres this week: 14 (not including warm ups)
- No. of runs: 3
Monday's Run - 5K slow
This was my 'breathing experiment' - you can see from my heart rate that the nasal breathing KMs (4 and 6) did't have any effect.
A bit slower than last week, but a bit longer, fine!
Compared to last week's run
Wednesday's Run: 4K reasonable intervals
I did 4* 500 meter ish intervals - at something like the following paces:
- 4.25
- 4.15
- 4.00
- 3.50
Faster than last week, and I feel fine, and much more consistent than last week too, in terms of the pacing of each interval, which is more like it!
Friday's Run: 4K 'fast'
Looking back at this... oops! A bit more intense compared to the previous week - no wonder I felt a bit knackered after - that was thanks to my first KM being faster, following a longer warm up!
Compared to last week's run
Next week's plans
I need to be mega disciplined and hold the two shorter runs at a similar pace while I work on increasing my distance.
On Monday I plan to up my 'long run' to 7Ks - which means I've got enough distance to actually go out and do a different route! Yay!
And I'll probably be breathing through my mouth!