Learning the Abdominal Breathing Technique

In this video, you will learn the abdominal breathing technique.

Abdominal breathing lets you inhale more air than breathing from your chest. Thus, it allows runners to perform better.

We will see how to breath from the stomach in 2 situations: while resting, and then while exercising.

Let's begin with breathing while resting.

Stand up straight and place your hand on your stomach.

Take a deep, 5 second breath through your nose while expanding your belly.

Make sure your hands spread apart as you stomach expands.

Stop inhaling for 3 seconds in order to keep the air in your lungs and in your stomach.

Then, exhale for 5 seconds.

Press your hands against your deflating stomach and make sure to keep your back straight.

Keep exhaling as much as possible and restart the cycle.

Next, we will see how to breath while exercising.

Practice the abdominal breathing techniques while you are running.

Concentrate on exhaling. This way, you can exhale the CO2 and replace it with oxygen-rich air when inhaling.

When exhaling, push all of the air out of your lungs and stomach.

In order to do this, bring your stomach in as much as possible and contract the abdominal muscles. Make sure you don't curve your back!

Once you have exhaled completely, inhale and fill up your stomach. Then continue the cycle.

Exhaling should take two to three times longer than inhaling.

Your breathing cycles should follow each other, don't block your breathing.

To ensure that you are breathing from your stomach, make sure you relax your shoulders each time you exhale.

Now you know the abdominal breathing technique in order to breath more efficiently from your stomach. Over to you!