Strength training and weight lifting help us improve our health by increasing muscle mass. For optimal weight training, form, intensity, nutrition, and recovery are all paramount. But what many people don’t understand is that the way youbreathe while you lift weights - and while you rest - can make or break your progress in the gym.
If you’re breathing through your mouth, you aren’t getting the maximum benefit from weightlifting. Breathing through the nose, on the other hand, ensures that you perform at your best whether you’re lifting a large or small amount of weight.
Weightlifting isn’t just about bulking up. It has been proven to improve posture, boost metabolism, lower inflammation, and keep chronic diseases at bay.
Nose breathing helps us get even more out of every lift by making it easier than ever before to complete lifts.
Proper Breathing Makes It Easier to Lift Weights
Breathing properly during strength training makes it less stressful on the body to perform each lift. More specifically, you should exhale through the nose on the lift (concentric phase) and inhale through the nose on the reset (eccentric phase).
With this breathing technique, you’ll exhale when you’re expanding the most amount of energy to perform the lift and inhale when resetting back to the starting position.
The exhale allows you to push harder and lift more efficiently without added effort. By inhaling and exhaling through the nose rather than the mouth, you’ll boost endurance and performance.
Boost Muscle Endurance to Lift More Weight, For Longer Periods of Time
Studies show that nasal breathing while weight lifting can help lifters sustain endurance and increase performance to lift more weight for longer periods of time.
For example: when using a bench press, breathing through your nose can help you increase your max weight quicker than ever before. This is because nasal breathing increases vitality and energy in the body by taking down your cardiovascular rate and breath rate. It also boosts the body’s ability to oxygenate, meaning that oxygen will be transferred more efficiently to those hard-working muscles that demand it.
This process is possible because of nitric oxide, a miracle molecule created and released by the nose when nasal breathing.
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Nitric oxide and nasal breathing aren’t just beneficial during exercise, though. Here’s how they help you during rest.
Quicker Recovery
Chances are, you’ve tried everything to boost recovery after strength training. What if it was as easy as breathing?
Using the nose instead of the mouth helps to restore and optimize your body’s performance. Nitric oxide produced during nasal breathing helps us to bounce back from exertion more quickly because it helps the body repair and rebuild. When combined with proper nutrition and sufficient sleep, this helps you recover faster and more completely.
As a result, you’ll be able to lift harder, heavier, and longer without the long-lasting fatigue and overwhelming soreness.
But the benefits of nose breathing don’t end there. Nasal breathing can even help to improve the function of your gut.
Improved Gut Function
It sounds far-fetched that your method of breathing while using the bench press, lifting dumbbells, or doing deadlifts can affect your digestive system. The truth is, the way you breathe directly correlates to gut health.
Your gut microbiome consists of tiny organisms that play a huge role in your overall well being. If the microbiome is thrown off, your digestive system will reflect it and your whole body will perform sub-optimally as a result.
Thankfully, one of the easiest ways to improve your gut function is to breathe through the nose. Breathing through the mouth throws off the gut microbiome. How, exactly?
Well, mouth breathing increases your chances of dry mouth, which causes saliva to evaporate. Saliva coats the teeth and protects them from bacteria and germs. Without it, your oral bacteria rise.
The nose, mouth, and gut are all connected. An overactive, bacteria-filled mouth means a bacteria-filled gut. The fastest way to reset the balance is to breathe through the nose so that the saliva in your mouth can do its job to keep bacteria under control.
For your next workout session, try out the following breathing exercise to get the most out of your workout.
Before you lift, take three quick, powerful breaths through your nose without exhaling. This should slowly fill up the lungs.
Focus on expanding the diaphragm. Then, exhale slowly through the nose. Repeat this process up to twenty times.
After your last exhale, hold your breath. Once you feel a large hunger for air, begin the process again with three quick inhales and one slow exhale.
Finally, finish with calming breaths in and out of the nose. Then, you’re ready to lift!
In this article we’ve covered some of the incredible ways that nose breathing can boost your weight training progress. So why not add SomniFix to your weightlifting and recovery routine to take your workout to the next level!
Incorporate SomniFix Strips into your workouts to encourage nose breathing. When you’re worried about your breath and your lifts, this can be harder to do on your own. That’s why mouth tape provides a huge benefit: you won’t have to think about your breath. Just place a strip on your lips and get to lifting!
You can also wear strips during sleep so that you continue to nasal breathe while you get much-needed shut-eye each night. That way, you’ll recover faster and be ready to crush whatever tomorrow’s workout brings!
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