Don’t Forget to Breathe..!

So, how’s your breathing? Oh fine, I hear you answer, been doing it since birth thanks. And yes, you could leave it at that and continue breathing without trouble right up until you stop, hopefully many years hence.

But in doing so you would also be missing out on some huge potential gains and whole worlds of improvement that can only be accessed by investing some time and energy into looking a little closer at this most basic yet most amazing physical function. Breathing is the only process linked to both our voluntary and automatic physical systems, and as such is the principal method by which we can affect and control our automatic physical responses. That makes it one hell of a powerful tool, and yet all too often we completely forget about it.

Of course, it sounds obvious – breathing comes pretty easily to us, after all, and the body does an excellent job of regulating it to cope better with all the various demands we place on our systems. However, as with many automatic functions, it is not necessarily as effective as it could be. We can all run, for example, but a trained runner travels more efficiently, with greater economy, and can alter his pace, stride and technique to fit a wide range of running scenarios. So it is with breathing: it is an art-form in itself, a discipline we can work at, a method we can employ to improve our performance across the board.

Without going into too much detail, let’s look at some of the ways in which we can utilise our breathing to benefit our everyday practice of Parkour. There are innumerable methods, both ancient and modern, for training one’s breathing and these vary depending on the ultimate aim of the discipline in which one is engaging. Very loosely, however, there are two areas of breathing at which we can improve: The first we will call preparatory breathing – or how we can use our breathing before carrying out an action; the second we will refer to as synchronized breathing – or how we can get the most assistance from our breathing during an action.

Preparatory Breathing

When the body undergoes high levels of stress or anxiety, perhaps before attempting a huge cat leap or a complex vault sequence for example, the heart rate becomes elevated and a cocktail of powerful chemicals floods the system. Parts of the brain and central nervous system actually become inaccessible, fine motor skills deteriorate, vision can blur, and accuracy and precision become almost impossible. One way to prevent this from happening, of course, is to have a high level of relevant skill – the more experienced you are at doing something, the less stressed you become when you have to do it. Nevertheless, sometimes you must attempt things you are not experienced at or have not done before, or even simply operate within unfamiliar environments, and the result can be the onset of the above physical reactions.

The best way to manage this stress and to restore control to your physiological systems is to utilise slow, deep breathing. By this we mean initiating your breathing from the abdomen and diaphragm rather than only from your lungs. Inhale through the nose[i], keeping the shoulders and chest as still as possible, and imagine filling the lungs up from the bottom. You should find that your stomach expands as you do this, and you will feel your core muscles stretch as well. Hold the breath for a second or two, then exhale – and the exhalation should also be slow, deep and controlled.

This type of breathing helps your body switch its state back to one of relaxation, opening the connections within the brain and restoring calmness and lucidity. You will find this improves your confidence as it helps you settle yourself before attempting the action, expands your senses, and will in turn reduce the chance of injury through carelessness and lack of control. Be aware of your breathing at all times and you will soon understand how taking simple steps can maximise your overall performance.

Warming-up is a prime example: learn to breathe into your stretches, exhaling purposefully through moments of involuntary tension or pain, and you will find it much easier to stretch the muscles further and more completely. Furthermore, the increased blood flow to the stretched muscles improves their elasticity and increases the rate at which lactic acid is purged from them.

Relaxation during the practise of Parkour is absolutely vital, and this results from proper, deep breathing. It will harmonize your body with its environment, improve the bloodflow to your muscles, centre your focus, and awaken you fully to your surroundings.

Synchronized Breathing

Before you start; no, this does not involve swimming caps and judges’ scorecards…

By ‘synchronized breathing’ we are referring to proper coordination between breathing and action, something that is crucial in that it improves one’s power, uses less energy and is more efficient, greatly increasing one’s endurance. Not only does this relate to proper harmony between breathing and posture – which creates a constant and flexible dynamic tension inside the body, protecting organs from harm and impact – but it also means knowing how best to coordinate our breathing with our movements. Let’s look at some basics.

First and foremost, learn to exhale! During training explosive actions are commonplace: cat leaps, diving vaults, precision jumps, and many more. These often require an enormous effort, and a sudden and powerful exhalation synchronized with the moment of maximum muscular exertion will greatly improve the power you are able to generate.

Another useful employment of exhalation is during any landing of considerable impact, such as level-to-level cats, big drops, or even those rare but inevitable bails! Breathing out at this moment allows your body to relax into a landing, which enables you to absorb the impact far better than if you were inhaling or simply holding your breath – the most common, yet not the most effective, automatic preparation for impact.

One other important breathing method is known as the ‘control pause’, and is particularly useful when attempting complex manoeuvres that require high levels of skill and precision. The control pause is that moment at the end of an exhalation, before inhaling (and even between heartbeats for the truly skilled), when our entire organism is at its stillest point. This is when we are best placed to interact with our environment completely, to tap into that connection and utilise it best. At the end of an exhalation we have the most control over our fine-motor skills, which is why this is precisely when the skilled marksman takes his shot and the archer looses his arrow… and it can be of no less use to the freerunner when attempting the more intricate actions of his art.

Breathing On The Run…

Freestyle Parkour is about constant movement, unbroken fluidity. So, I hear you cry, how can I take the time to stop and think about whether I am exhaling or inhaling at any given point? Good question. The answer: you don’t. Correct breathing is something you must practise, like any other skill or technique, until it is natural and unconscious. If your practice is deep and regular, you will find that you automatically integrate these patterns into your dynamic training runs. You won’t have to stop to plan your breathing as it will plan itself, flowing in one unbroken, highly effective process. Parkour is non-stopping, ever-moving, and rhythmic. Just like good breathing. Combine the two through serious practice, and you have a recipe for advanced ability.

However, a word of warning. If you try too hard to breathe correctly, it can become forced and unnatural, and will be of no use to you at all. Rather than forcing your breathing, you must learn to allow your breathing – to let proper structure and movement create natural and effective respiration. The key is to exhale through difficult, painful, or stressful moments, yes, but this facility must be developed over time through consistent practise. Let it develop in tandem with your other skills and the benefits will soon become obvious: better breathing leads to better control, better flexibility, better stamina, and better power.

Forget it, and you forget your potential.

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