AESTHETIC GODS POOL POSTING

"We are lutes, no more, no less. If the soundbox is stuffed full of anything, no music. If the brain and belly are burning clean with fasting, every moment a new song comes from the fire." - Rumi

So, all of the major points/benefits of nose breathing for athletes. • The release of red blood cells, improving oxygenation of the muscles • The production of natural EPO • A higher tolerance of carbon dioxide • Reduced stress and fatigue of working muscles • Improved psychological preparedness • Improved recovery time • Reduced lactic acid

“The problem is not a lack of oxygen in the blood, but that not enough oxygen is being released from the blood to tissues and organs.” So the problem exists not in the saturation of oxygen, it exists in the delivery. Carbon Dioxide is what allows for the delivery of oxygen inside your body, put simply. If you breath lighter, through the nose, you elevate levels of Carbon Dioxide in the blood, which improves oxygenation.

Nose breathing promotes breathing through the abdominal and prevents you from over breathing. When you breath through your mouth you are taking it roughly 2 to 3 times more air then you actually need into your body. Why is that a problem? Because it's like you are constantly in a state of hyper ventilating, which can cause issues like anxiety and lots of other health issues. While in a resting state and while exercising, you should maintain breathing through the nose, shallow, deep breaths in and out. “During periods of rest the standard breathing volume for a healthy person is between 4 and 6 liters of air per minute, which results in almost complete oxygen saturation of 95 to 99 percent.” “Increasing oxygen saturation to 100 percent has no additional benefits.”

"Provoking the body to release additional red blood cells and increase the concentration of hemoglobin in the blood improves the body’s ability to deliver oxygen to working muscles during exercise, this way giving an athlete a competitive edge. Athletes have been using these techniques for quite some time by training at high altitude and forcing the body to adapt to exercising with less oxygen. The traditional methods involve living and training at specific places. Whereas the oxygen advantage program is a practical alternative available to all people, regardless of location." The mouth was made for eating and eating only, not for breathing. There's a reason why mouth breathing is not promoted in children. It can stunt the development of a child's face, being a detriment to a child's aesthetic development (do you want you child to have a recessed jaw?) and on top of that, breathing issues. Chronic mouth breathing is horrible, and can cause a whole plethora of health issues.

"To reap the most benefit from your physical training, you need to train your body to do more with less. To do this, you’ll need to reduce your air intake. Incorporating this concept into your training will result in an improved breathing economy and an increase in your athletic performance, along with reduced breathlessness and lactic acid during competition. More importantly, you will not need to push your body beyond its limits, reducing your risk of injury, cardiovascular, and respiratory problems and other health concerns. Nasal breathing during physical training ensures that you do not push yourself beyond what your body is capable of doing. In addition to nasal breathing breath, breath-holding techniques are very beneficial to athletes. When you purposefully subject your body to reduce oxygen intake for a short period of time, the kidneys increase the production of EPO: a hormone that promotes the formation of red blood cells, and the spleen releases red blood cells into the blood circulation."

The advantages of nasal breathing during cardiovascular exercise. If you want a more in depth explanation of why nasal breathing during exercise is superior, check the book "The Oxygen Advantage." This is just a brief summary of the ideas. The breath is a powerful thing and the cardiovascular system is really intricate and it's a complicated subject that requires a lot of looking into to get the full picture. The cardiovascular system is the working infrastructure for everything in your body. This is just one small part of the picture. If you live in a colder climate, you have definitely experienced the cough that you get after you go on long run. This is what happens when you inhale cold, dry air straight into your lungs. You can avoid this through breathing through the nose as it acts to filter and warm the air as it enters into you. On top of this though, there's lots of athletic/health benefits to breathing strictly through the nose while training.