I just let my body breath naturally, and it chooses to use both mouth and nose. It finds its own rhythms. I see no difference in maintaining a specific HR when I force a rhythm (e.g. in breath 5 steps, out breath 5 steps) than when I just let the body do it. How do heck do I know how much it needs at any given moment? So, I just leave it alone. When I'm racing hard, I naturally breathe a 4-count, with mouth and nose. I breath fairly deeply, naturally, from the belly from years of yoga.
During marathons I have been known to drink through my nose running through water stations.
--Jimmy
Aaack!
Interesting question Tim. I am in Jimmy's camp on letting nature take its course and breathe as required in whatever way is least stressful. That being the case, exercise in general is the ability to get oxygen to the muscles and anything you do to restrict that will either make you work harder at a given pace or slow down. Sort of like high altitude or swimming in some respects. So I say nose only breathing will impact your HR during exercise. Will only nasal breathing help you improve? No clue but if thats the best way for you to stay below MAF, I say use it. Let us know how it goes.
I'm now off for my first run since Disney (wicked blister is ready to support my running). Perhaps I will try this today.
Before I found Running
As Jimmy pointed out, Yoga teaches you that your breathe should be long, slow and through the nose.
I took an intro to Yoga class for a couple weeks in December (much tougher to do then I thought) and decided to try out that technique while riding my bike on my roller trainer, I notice that if I take the yoga approach to breathing, my HR will drop about 5 bpm and stay there until I stop thinking about it and start breathing quicker through my nose and mouth. If I notice my HR rising, instead of slowing my cadence, I'll use the long, deep breathes to settle my HR down.
I imagine the same would be true when running. I try to mix up my breathing during a run, but find it much more difficult to slow it down and breath more deeply. I try to breath out of both my nose and mouth especially during the mid to end of my run. In the beginning I can usually breathe exclusively through my nose.
So I say nose only breathing will impact your HR during exercise
That was one of the things I found interesting when I looked into it. Supposedly, nose only breathing lowers HR. Mouth breathing raises HR. Mouth breathing fills only the top part of the lungs, but exhales more carbon dioxide. Exhaling too much carbon dioxide changes the ratio in the blood and can inhibit oxygen usage. Mouth breathing triggers a stress response. By contrast, nose breathing disarms the stress response. It pulls air deeper into the lungs. It also activates the nitric oxide production in the sinus, which, in the small doses produced by the sinuses, acts as a vasodilator and improves blood flow. (Think of the effect of nitroglycerin tablets for heart patients.) At least, this is what I found with some quick research. There was also mention of it being similar to the asthma treatment methods of Buteyko. Chapter 17 of the Maffetone Method book discusses the diaphragm and breathing, but it doesn't discuss nose breathing vs mouth breathing. I wonder if the new book mentions it. Now that I can nose breath effectively, I will keep an eye on it in future workouts to see what happens.
That was one of the problems I have had trying to do low HR base building. I have found that feel alone is an insufficient identifier of when I exceed my MAF number. Before my surgery, even when fast walking, I have exceeded my MAF number. I didn't realize it when it happened, but when I finally got around to looking at my HRM, I found myself 10 or more over my MAF. When I did my workout yesterday, I wasn't even aware of any rhythm of in/out breathing vs steps. I certainly wasn't trying to force that. I just noticed that when I was below my MAF number, nose breathing felt comfortable and natural. Above my MAF number, I felt the urge to gasp for air through my mouth. Slowing my pace let me nose breath easily again. It was almost like a change in my breathing was the equivalent of a MAF exceeded alarm going off. It was weird, but interesting. As for racing, I haven't progressed that far yet. I'm still base building and will be for quite a bit longer yet. I have not done yoga; not really interested in the spiritual aspects of exercise. But, I have done breathing from the belly. I also sleep mostly on my left side, which I have heard encourages that.
I had not heard of Ayurveda before. It may be a mixed bag for me. My local library has a copy and I'll take a look just to see what it says about nose only breathing.
Thanks, Tim. I think that's a pretty accurate summary of Douillard, and I did note some similarities with Dr. Maffetone (the warm up/cool down, diaphragm breathing). Of course, Dr. Maffetone doesn't object to exercise at intensities below the 180- number. As I'm sure you saw, Douillard's dietary recommendations get a little further afield of Dr. Maffetone's, but that's the Ayurveda coming through.
Just a couple of points to consider:
If you find the deep nose breathing helps you, that's great. For me, when it comes to breathing I recall Frank Shorter. A reporter once asked him: "What are your feelings about breathing?" Shorter's reply "I'm all for it!"
ETA: Douillard obviously paid better attention to his algebra teachers than I did. After thinking about it more, I think that his formula really is the same as the Karvonven formula for 50% effort. He just expresses it in a different way. So I was wrong to say they're different and obviously goofed in my math when I got different results using the two different equations. I've removed all that stuff now.
Dr. MLK,Jr brithplace
The book specifically mentions using the Karvonen formula (top of page 206, before discussing the forumula). There was also a mention of Dr. Ken Cooper and his recommendation to never exceed 60 percent max HR. My 220 minus forumla shows an HR max of 175. In my couch to 5k plan, I routinely saw 165 to 170 bpm numbers. I even saw one period of 191 bpm. That was one event that triggered my lower HR interest. A year or so ago, before starting to exercise, I had a stress test. IIRC, my HR in that test only went to 145. I have not had a more recent test. So, I have no idea what my HR max really is. I am also not sure if the definition of RHR is the same, generally at rest (75) vs before getting out of bed (60). That is one of the things that attracts me to the nose breathing part. I can use a change in breath/rate as an indicator of my upper range and not just a number.
I did do the body typing. For increased accuracy, I had my wife answer the questions. I ended up fairly well balanced: winter-19, summer-18, spring-16
I like breathing, too. But, I also found some differences in the effect of how I breath, now compared with before I could nose breath. I'd like to continue with it to see if it makes any further differences in my rate of improvement.
I agree with G, those MHR formulas can be way off. You can easily find yours at the end of a race, when you're warmed up enough. RHR should be taken at rest. When you wake up is a good time to do it.
A nose breathing/running by breath rate experiment seems worthwhile to me. Keep us posted.
I've never raced. So, I can't test that way yet. I'm guessing there are companies that can do this kind of testing. I'm in the northwest suburbs of Chicago and there is bound to be some place around here where I can test. Is it expensive? Should I look for certain methods of performing the test? Thanks.
I keep a small wrist blood pressure monitor on my nightstand so I can check first thing. It was down to 55 bpm this morning.
I will keep updating my log and noting how the nose breathing is going.
