We British don’t tend to be very good at breathing. It may rank among the most involuntary, automatic activities imaginable, but still we foul it up. “We tend to suck the air in, and then hold on to it, hence the clipped, stop-start patterns when we speak. Southern Europeans, Italians for example, breathe more smoothly and keep the breath going for longer when they speak,” says Peter Knapp, a former opera singer, and now a voice and communication skills trainer.
“I teach people to take a ‘dynamic’ breath in,” he says. “To do so, you have to engage the intercostals, the muscles that pull the ribs up and out. Feel mine! As I breathe in, my ribs are moving about 8cm laterally.” Indeed so; inhaling like this can result in up to 30% more air entering the body.
“Then we have to drive the breath out. It’s not about saving the breath, it’s about getting it out of the body powerfully and smoothly, and we use the abs to do so. We don’t drive the air out of the body as well if our abs aren’t in good shape.”
Knapp recommends three daily exercises to anyone wanting to improve their breathing technique. Firstly, there’s the “schuss”, a German term for a downhill ski movement. “Raise your arms high above your head then swing them downwards bending your knees. Straighten your knees again, swinging your arms up above your head. Breathe out as you go down and in as you swing up. With the downward swing, you’re completely pumping all the breath out of your lungs, using the abs. With the upward swing, you’re opening the ribcage, using the intercostals.”
Next comes the “candle”. “Keeping a relaxed, upright posture, take in a breath and then blow out firmly, as if you were blowing out a candle, and do it for four counts keeping it strong and consistent until you’ve emptied your lungs. Feel the abs contract, and hold the contraction for a couple of seconds before inhaling again, relaxing the abs as you do so.”
Finally, there’s “intercostal resistance” work, which, with practice, can lead to the all-important ribcage expansion. “Take a couple of deep breaths with your fists pushing into your ribcage on each side. Feel the beginnings of an outwards movement. Now put your top teeth quite firmly on your bottom lip as if you were going “Ffffffffffff …” and breathe in. Feel how hard the intercostals have to work to get that breath in.”
Intercostal resistance work has been part of athletes’ training regimes since the arrival a decade ago of the Powerbreathe, which resembles an inhaler for asthmatics. It’s basically Knapp’s “Ffffffff …” in a gizmo.
“People in gyms tend to work the exhalatory muscles, the abs,” says personal trainer and sports physiotherapist Rob Smith, “but it’s important to make those inhalatory muscles strong, too. I used to get chest problems, doctors said it was possibly asthma, but this way I’ve found I can counter it.” Smith, known as the Terminator, holds the the world record for 100m, 300m and 500m on the Concept2 indoor rowing machine. “A good rule, is to remember to exhale on the effort, for example the upwards push on a bench press, or the pull on a pull-up.”
Restricted breath-work is all too common, says Smith. “I find a lot of regular gym-goers make the mistake of holding their breath, especially when doing ab work. You need the core of the body to flex, and you can’t do that if the breath is held. There are some obvious causes: mothers whose pelvic floor muscles aren’t in great shape, for example. They can find it unnatural to pull their abs without holding their breath.”
Improved breathing also brings about what tai-chi instructor Brian Cooper calls “stillness”. “Someone under stress, who is terrified, will usually breathe shallowly because their nervous system is over-revved. If you breathe slowly and smoothly, evenly and continuously, the nervous system slows down, and you become calmer.”
Cooper teaches a four-part breathing technique. “The first part is to observe your breath in different circumstances. In a stressful scenario, for instance, it’ll be shallow and from the upper chest rather than lower down. Next, we breathe with the belly, and start to feel comfortable expanding the ribs sideways.
After that, we’ll work on feeling the lower back area expand as we breathe. Finally, we look towards the upper back moving, but not the chest. Once you’ve done that, you can focus on the diaphragm, the dome-shaped muscle that goes down as we breathe in, and up when we breathe out. Getting the diaphragm to expand causes pressure to occur on the lower part of the torso, so you get a great massage for the internal organs.”
As ever, this year’s Wimbledon was punctuated by loud, grunting expulsions of air as aces were served. “Breathing which generates more power is OK,” says Cooper. “But too much of that type of breathing can create aggression. With tai-chi, when you’re breathing properly, the idea is to be in a calm, meditative state. Even in the middle of a fight”.
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