Better Breathing Technique For Exercising

Thanks to a social media trend, military soldiers aren’t the only ones practicing cadence breathing. Fitness enthusiasts on TikTok are adopting this breathing technique to run more efficiently without feeling physically exhausted.

A cadence is a call-and-response work “song” used to keep soldiers stepping in time and maintaining a steady pace while marching or running. The leader says or “calls” a phrase in a rhythmic pattern, and soldiers respond in unison with a matching phrase. A cadence requires soldiers to take deeper breaths and control their breathing. Coordinating breathing with body movement and the cadence call increases oxygen in the lungs and provides the body with more energy.

Similarly, runners who practice cadence breathing coordinate their breathing with their steps. One of the most common practices is the four-step running pattern, where runners inhale for two steps and then exhale for two steps. Another pattern involves following the familiar military cadence, “left, right, left.” In this pattern, runners start on the left foot and inhale left, right, left, and exhale right, left, right.

Maraika Rose (@maraika.rose ), a fitness enthusiast, and Glenda (@fglo9), a U.S. Army veteran, have received thousands of likes, shares, and comments on their TikTok videos on cadence breathing. Rose said she found out about cadence breathing from watching Glenda’s video.

“You know how in the army they do ‘left, left, left, right, left,’ well, it’s a way of controlling their breathing,” Rose explained in her TikTok video, How to Breathe When You Run. “Every step, you’re doing something with your breathing. Essentially, what you’re doing is one deep breath in and then two half breaths out.”

In Glenda’s Running Tip video on TikTok, viewers can hear her take a deep breath while running rhythmically and exhaling twice on that deep breath. As she exhales, she belts out the word “HUH,” which is part of the cadence she learned in the Army: When that left foot hits the ground (this phrase would be repeated), all I want to hear is that HUH sound.

Although she did not run and say the cadence at the same time in the video, Glenda noted runners should make the “HUH” sound when they exhale. Also, she instructed runners to start with their left foot since soldiers start with their left foot when doing cadences while marching or running.

According to Coach Joe LoCascio of Road Runner Sports, efficient breathing techniques can help runners perform at their best. In his YouTube video, Proper Breathing While Running, LoCascio shared three stages to regulate breathing levels during a run:

Regular breathing. This involves breathing in through the nose and breathing out through the nose.
Breathing in through the nose and breathing out through the mouth.
Breathing in and out of the mouth. This creates a rhythm runners can follow that will help them run longer.

Runners can switch between these three steps as much as they need to during the run, LoCascio said.

Many people hesitate to go for a run simply because they don’t want to huff and puff at the end of their exercise. When you start high-intensity exercises like running, your body starts breaking down glycogen that is stored in the liver, skeletal muscles, and brain to generate energy for muscle contraction. Glycogen is the stored form of glucose, which is the blood sugar that the body uses for energy. The sudden release of glycogen triggers oxygen depletion, causing the runner to experience shortness of breath. However, Rose and Glenda showed how runners can control their breathing so that they can run longer.

TikTok users thanked Glenda and Rose for sharing the cadence breathing technique, and some said they already tried it. One viewer, @yolofitteam, commented, “You’ll be so surprised how much longer you can run when you control your breathing and your heart rate!” Rose told her viewers, “Controlling your breathing is the easiest way to keep your heart rate down.”

While cadence breathing may be a game-changer, runners should not expect to master the technique overnight.
“It took me eight months to learn how to breathe while I run,” Rose said in her video.

Source Links:

https://www.army-cadence.com/benefits-of-military-cadences/#google_vignette
https://www.lung.org/blog/breathing-basics-for-runners
https://www.tiktok.com/@maraika.rose/video/7423156572714519816
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-2szNtHea4