The REAL Reason You're Out of Breath Running (Not What You Think!)

if you're feeling out of breath slow down you are probably going out too fast there's probably something wrong with how you're attacking your workouts if you've been running and exercising and no matter what you do you're constantly feeling out of breath well number one you're not alone and number two this video is for you now number three you may have heard the advice given by a lot of coaches and trainers out there and even your friends hey if you're feeling out of breath slow down you are probably going out too fast there's probably something wrong with how you're attacking your workouts and for some you know that does make a little bit of difference easing into things does help but i'm willing to bet that there's a lot of you out there who are following that advice and still feeling out of breath still getting discouraged still thinking that hey this whole running thing may not be for you i'm telling you that's not the case at all and in this video i'm going to show you exactly what's going on with your breathing and some simple ways that we can fix it and start making real progress here we go first let's review what happens when we breathe we breathe in oxygen and we expel carbon dioxide as we go through that is that gas exchange that is vital for not only running and exercising but for sticking around on this planet a little bit longer now let's do a quick experiment and i'm going to show you uh later on in this video the significance of this i just want you to hold your breath for a second now you may notice it first like oh i'm fine but then you're going to notice that a slight tinge of something building up and it's not actually lack of oxygen in that moment that is triggering you to breathe it's actually the buildup of carbon dioxide in the body that is triggering that breath and that is the whole key thing that we are going to talk about in this video this relationship balance between oxygen and carbon dioxide in our body and when those levels get off or skewed for extended periods of times how that affects our breathing and our ability to perform now you first might be thinking somewhat logically that hey if i'm out of breath i should breathe in more oxygen i should try to cram as much air as i can down my gullet because that's going to help things out and of course when we're going really really hard an increase in oxygen is going to be important but the biggest culprit in our feeling of breathlessness is not lack of oxygen but a lack of carbon dioxide in the system and to understand this we got to revisit a little bit of chemistry see hemoglobin is a protein in your red blood cells that binds to oxygen and helps to deliver it around your body and for that oxygen to get unbound from the hemoglobin so it can actually be available to your working muscles to your lungs to your heart to your brain there needs to be a chemical reaction that drives the ph of our blood slightly down and that's where carbon dioxide comes in is carbon dioxide builds up in our bodies it makes our blood slightly more acidic and because our body likes to stay in stasis that triggers the hemoglobin to release the oxygen to then balance the ph back and then also to get that much needed oxygen fuel to our body so the problem is this if our carbon dioxide levels our co2 levels are too low and are chronically too low all the time our blood ph never drops which means that hemoglobin never releases that oxygen which means that you're working really really hard and yet you don't have access to the oxygen that you need to literally fuel those efforts and you might start to feel like you're coughing you're wheezing you could be lightheaded or or dizzy an extreme example of this is when we hyperventilate we know that if we slow our breathing down that helps what we're what we're doing when we slow our breathing down is we're not increasing oxygen we're actually letting carbon dioxide build back up but the next thing we need to talk about is hey why are co2 levels low in the first place and why is it low for other why is it low for some but not for others that's why we get into the problem with over breathing okay so remember the little breath hold test we did in the beginning of the video well that's a preview of what we are about to do in a second which is going to be a breath hold test which is actually a great prediction predictor of our tolerance for carbon dioxide how much our breathing volume is and our ability to perform and to run without feeling breathless all the time and it's this main ingredient in thing that we're going to pull on because remember as human beings we can adopt in positive and negative ways to a lot of different situations and naturally when we breathe and we breathe at normal healthy levels we adapt to a normal healthy amount of co2 that builds up in our body which is key for that whole gas exchange chemical reaction we just talked about but if we're someone who tends to over breathe the ink the volume of our oxygen is too high it also means that the volume of our carbon dioxide is too low and all of a sudden we become more sensitive to co2 than we previously were where our co2 threshold was here it's all of a sudden dropped all the way down here and so if i have any co2 that creeps up and i'm like i want to breathe i want to breathe i want to breathe and then that shoots myself in the foot because the hemoglobin proteins and the red blood cells never release the oxygen which basically shoots myself in the foot as i just said in a major way but let's get on to this breath hold test and i'll show you what it means so you have all this information now what do you do with it how do you know if you're that person who's been over breathing and uh that's what's been really affecting your running and your training and your exercise and everything so we're gonna do something called the body oxygen level test and no i did not make this up uh this is something developed by patrick mccown of oxygen advantage program in fact i'm gonna link to his website down below there's some fantastic resources on what this test means as well as further exercises you can do to improve your own situation but here's the deal we're going to talk about the test and then we're actually going to do the test together in this video to see how you do which is why i'm sitting down now so i get a nice comfortable relaxed position so i can have accurate test results we're going to take a normal inhale through the nose a normal exhale through the nose and at the end of the exhale we get a pinch that house [Music] and we are going to see how long we can hold our breath for until our body gets that first muscular response that urge to breathe now this is not the first absolute low level like oh this is kind of moderately uncomfortable and it's not a maximum breath hold time that you're going to fall over afterwards and you're gasping for air for minutes this is that in between place where your body's just starting to want to breathe just a little bit but you should be able to recover for within a few breaths right that's that main thing and this whole idea is this measures my tolerance of co2 which is a really good correlate for my normal breathing patterns which is a good correlate in turn for what happens to me when i go out and exercise in the road so are you ready to do the test fantastic i'm going to do this thing with you we're going to have a clock run all the way upwards for 40 seconds because that's gonna be the upper threshold i'm gonna see how i do if i fail early we're gonna keep the clock going and we're gonna see how you do as well okay so let's do the tests in inhale exhale two one [Music] that was a challenge i may have pushed you a little bit too far i'm on camera you guys inspired me but uh you know i'd say i probably got that initial surge around 37 around 27 20 seconds but i was able to hold it a little bit longer and we want to see how you all did in the test now this is very personal to you and this has um you know little to do with actually how talented of a runner you are in fact there's a lot of really talented athletes that don't do as well on this test but here's the deal with the results the normal adult according to patrick mccown's work his extensive studies researching this is that the normal adult who exercises moderately should be able to do a 20-second breath hold before that hunger for air is the word he likes to use the goal for athletes of all levels is to get to 40 to double that we should be able to comfortably hold our breath tolerate that co2 buildup for 40 full seconds before we really feel that need to breathe now if you're someone like myself when i first did this test a couple weeks ago i was someone that was like maybe 23 to 25 which was surprising because i thought hey i'm running all the time i'm pretty fit in my running right now i had no idea that i was so low but over the last couple weeks i've built it up to as you can see now just over 30. he really says every five second increase you make big increase in energy and performance all the way around but if you're that person who's below 20 who's at 15 or even closer to 10 this is the big red flag this is the missing ingredient in your running where it's not just about how to slow down or to moderate your pace all the time it's just that we need to adjust your breathing on a day-to-day level to make you that better stronger more comfortable runner and athlete so now that we have these test results what do we do with them that's what we're going to talk about next so now we got homework we got to improve our bolt score i myself i'm trying to get mine closer up to 35 into 40. uh wherever you are we know we always have room to improve regardless if you're beginner or even more of an elite athlete this is really important stuff we're going to do that because we want to gradually decrease our breathing volume and increase our co2 tolerance and i know it seems weird at first how does decreasing oxygen levels help me out well just as we mentioned about the whole chemistry lesson and gas exchange it really is the key missing ingredient the way we're going to do that is in kind of three phases one is going to be how we breathe when we sleep how we breathe day to and gradually how do we breathe in our exercise and dealing with higher levels of intensity and the goal and all of these things is to breathe less through the mouth and more through the nose and if you think about it mouth is this big uh big wide entrance to get a whole lot of oxygen in the nose is uh much smaller so just by breathing through my nose i'm all of a sudden limiting the inflow of oxygen and allowing for that natural co2 co2 to build up so a great place to start up and say hey can i just breathe through my nose more regularly during the day can i do it at night and again can i start to increase my nose breathing in my running which is if you've seen some of our videos on this channel we do a lot we do the nose breathing mile and the quick start program which is in the app it's free you can download it right down below and start doing that program we talk about it a lot in all of our training because not only does that affect our physiology it also affects our mechanics which is another key part of this conversation we really are just scratching the surface guys so if you want more from patrick mccown and you're curious about this oxygen advantage well we're going to link that down below they also have a great youtube channel but if you want to watch that next level of breathing and understanding mechanics and even different breathing patterns within the run itself check this video playing over my shoulder you'll dig it guys always a pleasure i'm gonna keep filming you keep earning your miles i'll see you in the next video

Channel: The Run Experience

Views: 773,983

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Keywords: the run experience, running training, distance running tips, how to run faster, beginner running, half marathon, distance running, trail running, 5k, The REAL Reason You're Out of Breath Running (Not What You Think!), how to breathe, while running, how breathe and run, correct breathing, correct breathing while running, san francisco, cardio, cardio workout, workout, run, fitness video

Id: s4WU4ghe7BY

Length: 13min 14sec (794 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 21 2020