Nose or mouth breathing when running, discuss.

[F.H.]

Apparently nose breathing is better than mouth breathing, I'm curious if anyone knows anything about this?

 

[Chelonian]

Apparently nose breathing is better than mouth breathing,

It requires discipline. And it disregards the stress which is experienced in, say, RT when one will be gasping for air because of the intensity of the phys.

As an aside Urban Dictionary says this:

 

[Agam1202]

The only time I nose breath when running is in cold weather as the air has more time to humidify making it easier on the lungs and preventing the burning sensation, other than that I find mouth breathing more efficient for me

 

[mace]

It does make a difference. If you want to know all of it read the fantastic book Breath by James Nestor.
Or listen to this (I haven’t watched this one but since it’s with Patrick McKeown I am sure it’s good)

 

[Biggles]

Certainly a useful tool for gauging intensity.

 

[insight]

There's an interesting book & articles around this - let me find those and post back.

 

[F.H.]

It requires discipline. And it disregards the stress which is experienced in, say, RT when one will be gasping for air because of the intensity of the phys.

As an aside Urban Dictionary says this:

This doesn't really answer my question aside from the mouthbreather urban dictionary definition. I've heard you get more oxygen through mouthbreathing but I've also heard the same for nose breathing.

 

[mace]

This doesn't really answer my question aside from the mouthbreather urban dictionary definition. I've heard you get more oxygen through mouthbreathing but I've also heard the same for nose breathing.

You don’t get more oxygen by breathing through your mouth. You will be off setting to much CO2 through mouth breathing hence gasping for air as you ramp intensity. You need CO2, it is what regulates your breathing rate and heart rate. Just listen to that interview it will possibly answer all your questions. Joe Rogan has a longer podcast with James Nestor as well.

 

[CallMeLucifer]

I breathe via my mouth when running. I've been doing that since day 1 of training, and I have no reason to change now.

 

[mace]

I breathe via my mouth when running. I've been doing that since day 1 of training, and I have no reason to change now.

Still, it’s worth considering how much improvement you potentially could have if you changed it.

 

[Advocado]

I'm a honking mouthbreather and a rapid runner are you telling me all I have to do to be on par with mo farah is breathe out my nose? Roger... watch this space

 

[mace]

I'm a honking mouthbreather and a rapid runner are you telling me all I have to do to be on par with mo farah is breathe out my nose? Roger... watch this space

You never know next time you realise you are heading for his title! Anyway, one can always try and make adjustments in their form to see if it improves. We should never be content.

 

[Nature's Wish]

Apparently nose breathing is better than mouth breathing, I'm curious if anyone knows anything about this?

I've always been a good runner and that continued to after having surgery around my guy and with a nose injury that never properly healed. I say that because when I exercise I breathe through my mouth becuse I need to yet I can gain above average results, demonstrating it's possible to be a great runner whilst using your mouth.
That said if you can breathe through your nose comfortably when running just do that. For sprints I imagine you'll be mouth breathing regardless.

 

[Nature's Wish]

It does make a difference. If you want to know all of it read the fantastic book Breath by James Nestor.
Or listen to this (I haven’t watched this one but since it’s with Patrick McKeown I am sure it’s good)

Do you know what these blokes say about breathing out?

 

[mace]

Do you know what these blokes say about breathing out?

Ideally through the nose or pursed lips to main a low breathing rate rather than hyperventilating and exhaling out too much CO2. He was also recommending doing hypoxic runs in a safe environment (in case you over do it and black out). An another coach who trains people for BUD/S was saying doing hypoxic swims and then go for a run. Has anyone ever tried that?

 

[Pastafarian]

Long slow runs = nose breathing / you dont require oxygen to burn fat. You train like this to develop the fat burning / endurance system.


As you increase intensity, your metabolism switches over increasingly to burning glucose which requires O2 to utilise. Problem is that you have a limited supply of Glucose in your system, dependent on training, muscle mass etc, say 2-4 hours.

An endurance athlete will spend the VAST majority of training time doing long slow runs where they are not out of breath. The fat burning system takes long time to develop (year on year). The aerobic system can develop much faster. This is why people will often say the most important workout of the week is the “Long Slow Run / Bike / etc”.

The fat burning system is the foundation for all other aerobic work for endurance athletes > the broader and deeper it is, the more the aerobic threshold (the point where you feel yourself want to mouthbreath) moves up to a higher and higher output. This enables you to go faster and faster over a long period at a higher intensity. People with highly trained systems are literally superhuman to watch. I go alpine climbing with some uber fit guys and they can exert themselves all day at a rate that simply crushes to a dribbling, leg shaking mess in a few hours, and I am no slouch. Thing is they are on a totally different planet - because of years of long, slow workouts in the mountains, often since they were kids.

Thing is that being a Marine is not the same as being an ultra endurance athlete. You require endurance, power and strength, speed and a high work capacity in general: “farmer strength” - but understanding the principle: long, slow, low intensity training trains the fat metabolism for you to go and go and go and takes years to develop - is obviously useful to know and work with.

 

[mace]

Physiologically it doesn’t quite work the way you described but I get you wanted to highlight the importance of LSD activities (not the drug long slow distance). Which is absolutely correct and should be a part of everyone’s programme training to be a Commando

So, the only time you don’t need O2 for any energy production is when you are dead. Even if you are weightlifting (snatch for example) that takes under 2 seconds and predominantly relies on the ATP-PC system there is still around 6% of O2 present in your cells which increases as intensity decreases and duration increases.
The other two aerobic systems (won’t get into anaerobic glycolysis as it’s irrelevant for LSD): aerobic glycolysis and aerobic lipolysis. For energy production, there is definitely need for O2 hence the name aerobic. The intensity, duration, diet and several other factors will influence which of the two you are predominantly using but most of the time there is an interplay between these systems as many biological functions require glucose (supplementation of it during an ultramarathon is essential).

 

[Pastafarian]

Many thanks for the extra comment further clarification... I purposely presented a simplified "back pocket" version that can be utilised as a general rule of thumb.

An especially interesting area is the idea that you cannot have excellent endurance and strength / power at the same time or that one will necessarily come at the expense of the other- whilst this might be true at the very very highest ends, it is annoying to have many high performance players (e.g. sharp end military personnel) worry about this and subsequently train in a way may not be optimal. Ross Edgely has done alot on this with his swimming around Great Britain (a laughable, absurd and bonkers diea - but he did it and one of the most incredible feats of human endurance I have heard of), yet Ross is a beast of an all round athlete - performing highly in multiple physical domains. He has superhuman endurance, power and strength. He has demonstrated that our ability to train all systems to a relatively high level is absolutely possible and makes a fantastic example of whats possible to achieve.

 

[Pastafarian]

Ross messing about the Marines:

 

[mace]

Many thanks for the extra comment further clarification... I purposely presented a simplified "back pocket" version that can be utilised as a general rule of thumb.

An especially interesting area is the idea that you cannot have excellent endurance and strength / power at the same time or that one will necessarily come at the expense of the other- whilst this might be true at the very very highest ends, it is annoying to have many high performance players (e.g. sharp end military personnel) worry about this and subsequently train in a way may not be optimal. Ross Edgely has done alot on this with his swimming around Great Britain (a laughable, absurd and bonkers diea - but he did it and one of the most incredible feats of human endurance I have heard of), yet Ross is a beast of an all round athlete - performing highly in multiple physical domains. He has superhuman endurance, power and strength. He has demonstrated that our ability to train all systems to a relatively high level is absolutely possible and makes a fantastic example of whats possible to achieve.

Don’t get me wrong I love Ross Edgley as well as Nick Bare, both doing concurrent training but as discussed before by people in the known neither of them is clean. That doesn’t take away from their achievements just a thing to consider. More so, yes you can do concurrent training but you won’t get optimal results for either. So if you are someone who is better at one or the other system you should focus on your weakness first until you get to a level where you can maintain both but again won’t be maintaining either at an optimised level. Having said I will be doing concurrent training to maintain my calisthenics reps while I am trying to decrease my 1.5 miles time. One thing that can help concurrent training is to have at least 7-8 hours between the anaerobic/aerobic part. Ideally, separate days but then your work capacity would suffer so comprises have to be made.