The Benefits of Breathing Exercises

The Benefits of Breathing Exercises

One of the things that I’ve noticed over the years, when it comes to athletes dealing with pressure and the anxiety that comes with racing, is that fear of the moment reveals itself through the athletes’ breathing – or, in many cases, the lack thereof. In last month’s issue, I discussed the question of how to breathe during a hurdle race. In that article I noted that some hurdlers hold their breath while running a hurdle race and literally forget to breathe until they’re half-way down the track, causing early onset of fatigue, which leads to mistakes in technique.

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This forgetfulness is, in my opinion, a direct reflection of the fact that the athlete is too tense, too keyed up, to the point where his or her hyped-ness is actually counterproductive – inhibiting peak performance instead of facilitating it. So it makes sense to me that hurdlers should try to monitor and control their nervous energy as a daily habit, not just when it’s time to put the spikes on and step into the starting blocks.

In one-and-done events like the hurdles – events where you get one blink-of-an-eye chance to do your thing followed by days, weeks, or even months to contemplate what you could have done differently – the pressure to run a well-executed race can be tremendous. The fear of wasting weeks, months, or even years of quality training with a false start, a bad start, a lazy trail leg, etc. can create a quiet state of panic within the heart and mind of a hurdler.

For that reason, developing the habit of slowing down the mind with its constant worries can be a very useful, practical method to address the issue of pre-race anxiety.

A book I read a while ago kind of helped me understand this concept early on in my coaching career. It’s called Working out, Working Within, and it’s written by Jerry Lynch and Chungliang Al Huang. I read it because it applies Taoist principles of simplicity and going with the natural flow to athletic competition. While the book has its corny parts, I did find that it gave some very good instructions.

One exercise the authors of this book suggest is called “breath watching.” I’ll quote the passage directly:

Inhale slowly through the nostrils and watch with your eyes closed the “white cloud” fill the lungs completely.”
Suspend breath for a few seconds (three to five) and watch the clean air travel to all extremities of your body.
Exhale and watch the “smoky de-oxygenated cloud” exit the nostrils as carbon dioxide. See it dissolve and disappear.
Suspend breath for a few seconds (three to five) and imagine the emptiness of your lungs.
Repeat this breath-watching process ten or more times and notice the calm relaxation take over. (pg. 43).

Now, the whole thing of the white cloud, the de-oxygenated cloud, and the carbon dioxide, I can do without. But the exercise itself is very useful. To put it simply, inhale through the lungs as deeply as possible, hold your breath for three seconds, then exhale until the breath goes all the way down into your diaphragm, and hold your breath for three seconds again. Do ten reps, and you’ll feel a gradual release of tension. You will feel calm, yet highly energized. Which is the exact state you want to be in prior to a race.

This breathing exercise can be done in the house, on the bus ride to the meet, or just prior to lining up for the race. You don’t have to be seated in lotus position on a yoga mat. There need not be any external indication that you are “meditating.” But you do need to be able to focus on what you are doing, so popping in the ear buds on the bus ride and playing some relaxing music on your electronic device will help you to get into the proper zone. If you’re standing in front of the blocks before the big race, just close your eyes and do a rep or two of this breathing exercise if you feel your emotions getting the better of you.

In addition, a visualization aspect can be added to this exercise. To visualize simply means to see yourself doing something before you actually do it. My observation has been that visualizing is something that we do naturally, without necessarily trying to do consciously. So we might as well put some conscious thought to it so it doesn’t go in harmful directions.

I remember when, as a 17-year-old high school senior who had just gotten back home after a three-week hospital stay with a life-threatening blood disease, I often visualized what I would look like going over a hurdle for the first time in several months. I would see myself running up to the first hurdle and falling down before I even got there. I would see my legs giving way, falling out from under me. I was so afraid that I’d never be able to get back to where I once had been that I kept seeing these mental images of myself failing over and over again.

When I was in my first year of college and adjusting to the 42’s, I would always see myself smacking the first hurdle with the heel of my lead leg before running a cleaner race down the line. And sure enough, I would always hit the first hurdle in races.

It took me a while to realize that these images in my head were functioning as self-fulfilling prophecies. In the case of coming back from my illness, it wasn’t until I finally went out to the track and did some reps that I was able to move past the fear of falling down. In the case of my first year of college, I literally had to sit in my dorm room, close my eyes, and see myself clearing the first hurdle cleanly before I was finally able to stop clobbering it. In the latter case, I realized that my expectation of smacking hurdles had to do with the fact that I was no longer with my high school coach, with whom I had developed a very close bond and who had always known how to quell my fears. Without him there to help me deal with this difficult adjustment period, my imagination ran wild with dark thoughts. Once I understood what I was doing to myself and faced it, I learned to actually look at these images in my head and redirect them.

In a more healthy way, I visualize as a writer. As an English teacher who teaches a lot of 11^th graders, I am often asked to write college recommendation letters. I remember talking to one of my colleagues about this once a few years ago, and he was complaining about being asked to write eight. I was like, “Bruh, I’m writing twenty.” He couldn’t understand how I could possibly find the time to write so many. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t understand. When I asked him how long it took him to write one, he responded, “Three hours.” Huh? Three hours? I told him that it generally took me about half an hour. He didn’t believe me. And he half-way accused me of writing half-ass letters. But I couldn’t imagine how it took him so long. When I asked around, just about all the other teachers said it took them about two hours.

So I thought about it, and I realized that the reason I could crank out those recommendation letters so swiftly was because I had unconsciously developed the habit of writing them in my head before sitting down at the computer. On my long runs, or during downtime in my school day, or in moments of daydreaming, I would formulate what the first paragraph would consist of, what anecdotes I would include, etc. So by the time I actually sat down to write, the words just poured out quite easily.

So, to get back to the point, it’s important for hurdlers to realize that visualization is not something you consciously choose to do, but something you do whether you choose to or not. The key is to look honestly at the images in your mind so that you can identify what your fears are.

In incorporating visualization into the breathing exercise described above from Working out, Working Within, you would basically do the following: instead of watching the breath, watch yourself going over a hurdle, or coming out of the blocks, and watch the image throughout the entire breath cycle (rep). If the image is a “negative” one (you’re falling or hitting hurdles, etc.), don’t fight it, don’t push it away. Just observe it. Because if you push it away, the fear remains. If you just observe it, the fear diminishes. And by the tenth rep, the fear will most likely be minimal, if not gone completely.

As time goes on, as you become more conscious with your visualizing, you can begin to incorporate the images that you want to see. But again, I don’t like to think in terms of “positive” or “negative” images. Those words imply judgement. And a big part of the reason we feel so tense prior to races is because we’re constantly making judgements about ourselves, constantly trying to live up to expectations. We’re not running freely, but with piles of emotional baggage.

Lynch and Huang state that “many of us are so preoccupied with the outcomes, results, mechanical and technical aspects of our [race] and life that we overlook the fun or the reason why we play, rushing instead, to reach a goal, as if that were the purpose of playing or participating” (pg. 72).

Breathing and visualization exercises can help athletes to regain a sense of the thrill of competition, of the joy of hurdling. They can help athletes to maintain an emotional balance and an inner equilibrium that enables them to confidently and calmly deal with the most pressure-filled situations.

Source:

Lynch, Jerry, and Al Chung-liang. Huang. Working Out, Working Within: The Tao of Inner Fitness through Sports and Exercise. New York: J.P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1998. Print.