Better Health through Deep Breathing

Enough positive things cannot be said of performing deep breathing exercises. Training the muscles that draw air into and expels it from the lungs makes it easier to do any endurance exercises that require strong lungs. Building your lung capacity results in increased O2 consumption, meaning more oxygen is carried to your body and brain to keep it going longer. The martial arts often incorporate and encourage deep breathing, as do yoga and bodyweight calisthenics. Don’t ignore or overlook this important part of natural training. You can do deep breathing exercises all by themselves, or add them to your yoga and bodyweight sessions to make them even more powerful workouts.

“Deep breathing has made many a weak man strong and many a sick man well.” -Martin “Farmer” Burns

Try this: expel the air from your lungs, make a tight circle with your lips, then breathe in as hard as you can. You are breathing in from deep in your lungs, not from your mouth or throat. This exercise, done often, will strengthen the muscles that you use to inhale air. Next time you swim or run, you will find inhaling to be easier and more natural; you won’t be huffing and wheezing so much.

Next, keeping the tight circle in your lips, breathe out slowly but with force, tightening your abs hard as you exhale. Do this a lot for greater lung power, and for tight abs.

You can also slightly lean forward and exhale all the air out of your lungs. Do not inhale as you lean back and suck your diaphragm in (the front bottom of your ribcage). As you pull in your diaphragm, you will feel your stomach flattening and being sucked in, massaging your organs.

These three lung exercises are not to be overlooked! Practice them often, and in conjunction with other workouts!

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