Runners I have an exercise for you.  The next time you are running take a DEEP DEEP breath.  Breath from your trachea, down to your left and right bronchi, down into your Bronchiole, and finally suck in a bit more so oxygen fills your Alveoli sacs!  Then note how hard this is to do.  This shouldn’t be hard at all, in fact this should be the breath you go to 3/4 of the way up a hill, at the 3 mile mark when you realized you have 10 more miles left, and at the beginning of the shoot as you sprint it in towards the finish line!  This is the power breath!

Deep down at the Alveoli sac is where the lungs contact your capillaries.  Capillaries are a bed of arteries and veins containing a large surface area good for diffusion of gases, minerals, and nutrients.  Without big deep breaths, there isn’t as much oxygen in those alveoli sacs.  Less oxygen in the alveoli sacs, mean less diffusion of O2 into the blood stream.  Less O2 in the blood stream means there is less oxygen for your working muscles.   Less oxygen for working muscles means less fuel for those muscles.  Less fuel for muscles means slower races.

So learn to breathe deep.  Feed those muscles!  Oxygen is fuel.  Without focused rhythmic breathing your tank will be running on empty!