Recovery for athletes

Posted on September 4, 2011

Gasping for breath, hands on your knee’s…”just one more minute coach!”…does this scenario sound familiar? If it does, unfortunately, you have it all wrong. This next training tip is going to give you a method boxers use to recover between rounds. No longer will you constrict your breath by pressing your diaphragm against your lungs while your hands are on your knees, the days of “one more minute” will turn into the days of “I’m ready…is the break over yet coach”!

So the round has been brutal; the run has exhausted you; the skate down the ice earned you a break. Instead of hunching forward, stand up tall, take a few breaths that the body will allow and then take the recovery into your control. First, take a big breath in through your nose. With out breathing out, take another breath in through your nose, opening up your chest cavity even more. And another…try for 3 or 4 (all being as big as you can) and slowly let out the breath. The next breath, take a big breath in through your nose once and using the diaphragm and abdominal muscles, blow the air out of your mouth with force. Done. Yup, that simple, yet, it takes practice to be able to control your breathing that quickly after strenuous exercise.

What did you do? With the 3-4 big breaths in, you allow new clean air to fill the upper parts of your lungs (an area that with normal breath usually has “old” air. This gives your body more Oxygen. With the breath out, you force the “old” breath out, again, giving your lungs room to inhale more clean air.
Note: Do this once between exercises , not multiple times, as this method can leave you light headed and dizzy if you repeat to often to quickly.

Happy Training!

Coach