Why breathwork in strength training?

As we go through the strength training this winter, we'll see a number of breathing exercises within our main strength routine. This is not even on the radar for the general population or the general cycling world; by the time people start to talk about it in another three to five years, you'll already be so far ahead you won't even remember why we started it in the first place. You'll just reap the benefits.

Here's why we do these breathing exercises

We use breathwork to help decrease tension and bring our hormonal status down after doing a heavy exercise. These breathing exercises help us learn how to retain control. Muscles from our core (everything between our neck, elbows, and knees) are being equipped to dial down and relax, because fast is loose, and loose is fast. If we're too stiff, or if our muscles are too tense, we're not going to get the control that we need both neuromuscularly and out on the bike.

Not only do these positional breathing challenges drop the internal environment and make it easier to come back to rest, but they also help us learn how to direct airflow to get specific muscles to relax. We're able to get our midsection to relax, our hip flexors to relax. The psoas actually comes up through the diaphragm, so these breathing exercises are actually massaging the diaphragm when we do it right and get that deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth. We are able to change the internal environment, drive better mobility, get a better range of motion, improve neuromuscular control, and set up a better internal environment so we can perform longer in the strength workouts because we're not as tired.

Many of these breathing exercises are embedded within the rest periods. This is a high-performance approach to strength training that will allow us to get better mobility and better range of motion, as well as connect to parts of our bodies that we might not sense as much in the exercise itself because we're focused on technique or doing the exercise with some weight. This is highly advanced. It's a huge boost to performance, and you will feel some really great results after the first four or five weeks of practicing this.

It's also a lot of fun, so don't skip the breathing exercises! Take your time, watch the videos, and ask questions in Circle.

So remember: it's all about breathing, posture control, and control over the movement in a way that is going to help us get the desired benefit in the strength exercise, as well as on the bike.