Sue Falsone has a great quote from her book “Bridging The Gap From Rehab To Performance” where she states, “When you control your breath, you control your mind…If you can control your breath, you can control your life.”
Breathing is life. Take away our ability to breathe and we die.
Breathing might be the deepest rabbit hole of study in the health and fitness industry and we will not do it any justice in a short newsletter.
For today, we just want to hit a few important points that you can try out or consider.
We put a lot of emphasis on proper breathing mechanics when our members are in the gym. It’s the first thing we focus on whether you are participating in our small group training or small group personal training programs.
One important reason is that many of us are stressed, from work, family or any number of things we have going on in life. Because of this we’re running our sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) on overdrive. When our breathing is inefficient, our body isn’t running optimally and it’s not able to move or perform the tasks we ask of it.
Focusing on breathing slowly and with control allows us to stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system (rest & digest) so we can relax and lower our resting heart rate.
Attention to breathing also has an almost magical impact on our mobility. We’ve had new members come into our gym for an assessment before starting their training with us, ran them through a simple breathing drill, and the amount of immediate improvements in mobility and how they feel overall is amazing (and fun) to see.
When we start our sessions with attention o breathing, we positively impact our mood, energy, mobility, stability, and the list goes on.
This is why breath control is so important – we do it to live. If we do it right, we can correct all kinds of issues with our body.
Included at the end of this email is a newly revised breathing drill from one we use often called the Brettzel 2.0. We added two more pieces to it thanks to Dr. Greg Rose. We’re dubbing this one the Brettzel 2.0 Matrix. Add it in your current warm up or run through it in the morning before work or at the end of the day as a reset and to chill out. Recognize how you feel after and let us know your results.
If you want another great book on the elements of breathing, especially the importance of nasal breathing, check out James Nestor’s book “Breath: The New Science Of A Lost Art” where he takes a deeper dive into the benefits and power of nasal breathing.
For the rest of this month, focus on how you’re breathing during your favorite activities, in the gym, or just playing with your kids.
Throughout the day, recognize if you’re mouth breathing or nasal breathing and begin to practice nasal breathing to become your primary mode all the time.
Please reach out with any questions or any content suggestions you’d like us to go over in a future blog or newsletter.
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