About this Episode
In episode 141, David Jackson, Master Instructor at The Oxygen Advantage, joins us.
Specifically David will be looking at:
- What nasal breathing is
- Why people should perform nasal breathing
- How to incorperate this into your life
Breathing is pretty simple, right? Breathe in and out, and repeat for as long as possible. Well, it turns out, many people are doing it all wrong. Well, maybe not wrong, as you’re alive reading this, but at least suboptimally.
That’s why we wanted to speak to David Jackson to hear his thoughts on the importance of breathing well, and of course how to do it properly.
Jackson is a former professional rugby player who, since his playing days, has become an accredited Strength and Conditioning Coach, and is now a master breathing coach with Oxygen Advantage.
Jackson kicks off our interview by telling the story of the head injury which ended his career. It turns out that after his injury, his breathing test scores left a lot to be desired.
“I scored very badly like I was in a category of severe asthmatic and I was like, I’ve never had a problem with my breathing. I’ve never had asthma, what’s going on? I had a suspicion that my brain injury will have affected my breathing,” Jackson said.
So that led the Englishman to investigate further, fast-forward to today, and he’s using the knowledge found in his investigations to help others improve their breathing.
But why is breathing so important? Well, it turns out that next to the obvious fact that oxygen drives aerobic respiration, there may be some mechanical dysfunction related to poor breathing too.
“Keeping the ribs out is keeping tension or stretch on the diaphragm. That then affects the tissues such as the psoas major and quadratus lumborum they’re all attached to the diaphragm. So we get issues around the lower back, around the spine and rib cage that will affect your shoulder by position and your pelvis, Jackson said.
So is breathing going to be a one-stop shop to cure all your ailments? Maybe not, but apparently it could be an easy aspect of movement to work on, with very limited downsides
“We get like all these potential issues around some movement dysfunctions, and not that breathing cures all things, but it might be something to look at and I experience is quite easy to address,” Jackson said.
So what does he recommend to improve breathing? Well firstly, he’s a big proponent of nose breathing, as opposed to mouth breathing.
“The mouth doesn’t provide the protection, the filtration system, all those hairs within the nose,” Jackson said.
Next to this, the nose provides more resistance than an open mouth, which has a knock-on effect on the diaphragm.
“Resistance allows a better connection to the diaphragm. It gives your diaphragm something to pull against when you have very little resistance,” Jackson said.
This shallow type of breath limits the amount of oxygen you can get into the lungs.
“That’s not efficient in terms of getting oxygen into the lungs especially low down where we’ve got the greatest density of alveoli,” Jackson said
Based on this it appears that shallow mouth-breathing is the type of breath that we want to avoid, but what should our breathing look like?
“In terms of the mechanics, it looks like a three-dimensional expansion of the rib cage. So you’re going to expand front to back and also side to side. So three-dimensionally expanding that rib cage,” Jackson said.
But getting to this stage might be a bit tricky at first, it was for Jackson at least.
“If like me, you got into some poor breathing habits and you switch to nose breathing and you try and go out for a run, I couldn’t get to the end of my road, which is like 50 metres away,” Jackson said.
So definitely don’t be disheartened if it doesn’t work to start with, this is trainable, and with time you can improve.
How do you train it? Well, for that you’re going to have to listen to the full podcast. It’s a bumper forty-minute episode, with loads of fantastic advice as to how you can improve your breathing and ultimately sport performance.
Hit this link to improve your breathing today!
