Tag Archives: breathing exercises

Morning Wake Up Routine

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Ever have one of those mornings when you have to be up early for work or school, but simply can’t summon the energy to start your day?  This is a routine I have been using successfully for years to shake out the cobwebs and get me moving on the mornings when just a cup of coffee isn’t going to do it.  It’s not your fault, and bear that in mind – some people just aren’t morning people.
Back when I was travelling for weeks on end and putting in long hours every day for consulting work this routine was my morning staple in the hotel room before meeting my colleagues for breakfast.  I find it most effective on the mornings when I am most tired.  Just as an aside, it doesn’t have to be used in the mornings, it has benefits any time of the day when you need a little pick me up.  One caution, and although this should be obvious I’ll say it anyway, don’t do it before going to bed – you won’t sleep!

The Routine

Joint Mobility

This has the effect of increasing synovial fluid to lubricate the joints while at the same time increasing blood flow to the surrounding muscles.  For the quick version we will concentrate on the neck, shoulders, hips, and spine.

Neck:

  1. Up/Down – lift up from crown of head; slide down along plane of jaw for 3 to 6 repetitions.
  2. Left/Right – turn head as far left as possible without pain, turn as far right as possible for 3 to 6 repetitions.
  3. Full circles in both directions.

Shoulders:

  1. Roll both shoulders – lift shoulders up towards ears, roll backward fully articulating the range of motion (ROM), drop them down as far as comfortable for 3 repetitions, then repeat by rolling forward for 3 reps.
  2. Alternate shoulder rolls – roll left shoulder back as described above while pushing right shoulder forward then switch.  Perform 3 times each.
  3. Swing both arms as fast as possible windmilling them forward for 20 seconds then backward for 20 seconds.

Hips:

  1. Circle hips clockwise and counter-clockwise 10 times in each direction.

Spine:

  1. Keep the spine straight and fold forward at the hips, then rotate around to the left and back to center, then forward and around to the right.
  2. Keep the spine straight and fold backward at the hips, then rotate around to the left and back to center, then forward and around to the right.

Energizing Breath

In this breathing exercise we will utilize a protocol founded by yoga and improved upon by Russian sport science and martial art.  Here the breath is divided into 3 levels: clavicular (upper level), intercostal (mid level), and diaphragmatic (lower level).  This exercise will focus only on the clavicular, or upper level.  For more information on breathing exercises, please see Evolve Your Breathing.

  1. Exhale through the mouth in a short, quick burst by compressing the upper chest.
  2. Do not actively inhale.  Allow the inhale to happen by relaxing the muscles in the chest.
  3. Repeat rapidly 20 to 40 times.
  4. Build up to where you can perform continuously for 60 seconds.
  5. If you become dizzy, stop and sit down!

Slap Yourself Silly!

This is actually an ancient Qigong exercise designed to improve circulation and disperse stagnant energy.  The execution is pretty simple.  You may want to avoid practicing this in public though!

  1. Gently, but vigorously, slap your shoulders, upper back, and lower back with the palms of the hands.
  2. Then slap down the inside of one arm and up the outside.  Switch arms.
  3. Slap down the outside of both legs – you can slap a little harder here – and up the inside.

Enjoy and Wake Up!

Breathing 101

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I was planning to title this post, “Breathing for Dummies” after the famous how-to guides, but I realized most dummies aren’t interested in bettering their health, fitness, and extending longevity in their sports, martial arts, or activities.  Plus, I dislike the subtle insult of refering to my readers as “dummies”.  Nor would I want dummies for readers anyway.  So instead today we will go over Breathing 101.  These are what I consider to be the most effective ways to integrate breathing exercises into your daily training, and use them to increase lung capacity and efficiency of how your body processes oxygen.  We will look at several different exercises that will enable you to lower your heart rate, blood pressure, and stress levels, as well as to increase energy.

Breathing as a Bridge

You may not be aware that breathing is a bridge between our voluntary and autonomic nervous systems.  Meaning breath is plugged into both.  The autonomic system will keep you breathing continuously without your conscious control, or sometimes, without even your awareness of it going on.  But, you also have the power to override that control and decide at any moment to take a deep breath or hold your breath.  What does this mean to you though, right?  Well, here’s what it means, you have the power, at any time, to consciously choose to influence things like your heart rate and blood pressure which are not under your conscious control.  Now that’s fascinating to me!  Because breath is tied into both systems it can be used like a bridge to gain access to aspects of your body that you cannot directly control.  How do we do this?

Try This Experiment

Take your pulse.  Count beats for 10 seconds then multiply by 6.  If you’re sitting and relaxed, that number should be your resting heart rate.  Now, inhale as deeply as possible and hold your breath and tense your whole body for a few seconds.  Are you red in the face?  Take your pulse again.  What happened?  Your hear rate jumped up and your blood pressure spiked right along with it, right?  Now try exhaling for a count of 6, but don’t inhale yet.  Extend the pause before the inhale a little bit.  Feel more relaxed?  Check your pulse.  It should have dropped.  Pretty cool, eh?  And this is just the beginning.

The Exercises

 

Relaxing Breath (Square Breathing)

This is very similar to the experiment we did above.  The basic premise of our ability to influence the autonomic nervous system is that inhalation increases heart rate, which subsequently increase blood pressure, to a slight degree, while exhalation lowers heart rate and blood pressure to a slight degree.  During our normal cycle of breathing, these changes are too minute to register, or even notice.  But, by gradually lengthening our breath and extending the pause before inhaling and exhaling, we compound the effect.

  1. Begin by exhaling through the mouth for 5 seconds.
  2. Do not inhale.  Try to extend the breath pause for 5 seconds.
  3. Before tension begins to creep in, inhale for 5 seconds.
  4. Hold the breath on the inhale for 5 seconds.
  5. Repeat the cycle 10 times.
  6. As this becomes easier, and your capacity expands, try increasing the duration to 6, 7, 8 seconds.

 

Energizing Breath

In this breathing exercise we will utilize a protocol founded by yoga and improved upon by Russian sport science and martial art.  Here we will divide the breath into 3 levels: clavicular (upper level), intercostal (mid level), Diaphragmatic (lower level).  This exercise will focus only on the clavicular, or upper level.  I first learned this exercise, and several others including the next one below, about 10 years ago from my good friends Dave Rusin and Oleg Yakimovich who are ROSS Russian Martial Art instructors.  More information about ROSS can be found at their website here.  Check it out!

  1. Exhale through the mouth in a short, quick burst by compressing the upper chest.
  2. Do not actively inhale.  Allow the inhale to happen by relaxing the muscles in the chest.
  3. Repeat rapidly 20 to 40 times.
  4. Build up to where you can perform continuously for 60 seconds.
  5. If you become dizzy, stop and sit down!

Restoring Breath

Here again we will depend on Russian sport science and martial art for our technique.  This one is literally a life saver when doing high intensity anaerobic workouts!  It can be used in between exercises as well as in between sets, during the rest period, and at the end of the workout to normalize breathing and dramatically lower heart rate.

  1. Forcefully exhale as deeply as possible by rolling your shoulders forward, tilting the pelvis up, and contracting the core strongly.
  2. Pause before the inhale for a few seconds.
  3. As stated above, do not actively inhale.  Allow the breath to be sucked back in through the nose as your body returns to a natural standing posture.
  4. Repeat for about 60 seconds, or as long as needed.

Try these out and let me know how they work for you.  Any questions, please feel free to contact me here.

So Ya Wanna Be a Ninja?

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Masaaki Hatsumi, Grandmaster of the Bujinkan Dojo, once stated, “endurance is of primary importance for the ninja.”  One definition of endurance is the ability to resist fatigue.  Looking at the kanji (Chinese character) for Nin, there is the ideogram for “sword” over the ideogram for “heart” giving Nin a meaning of, “even though you hold a sword over my heart, I will endure.” 

How many of us training in the Bujinkan, or any other martial art, can truthfully claim that ability?  How long can you train?  How far can you push yourself?  In martial art, endurance, or the ability to “keep going” is defined in years, not minutes, hours, or days.  How can we create an effective training program that will instill in us the ability to continue, to endure?

Physical Endurance

Let’s begin by examining the concept of physical endurance.  There are 3 basic types of physical endurance:

  1. Aerobic endurance
  2. Anaerobic endurance
  3. Strength endurance

We discussed the body’s 3 energy systems and how using the Tabata Protocol can effectively improve both the aerobic and anaerobic systems here.  Strength endurance is defined as the ability to effectively maintain muscular functioning under work conditions of long duration.  There are two basic ways to increase the ability of your body to do more physical work.  One is the continuous adding of weights, sets, reps, and time to push the body to create an adaptation to allow it to perform more work for a longer duration.  As we discussed previously in the article on GPP, the body’s capacity is expanded.  Progress is incremental and continuous for as long as one is able to keep increasing driving forces in the body.  The next one, however, is often overlooked in our “just add more volume” culture.  More is always better, right?  If one vitamin is good for you, take 4, that’s even better (please don’t!).  But, there is another way to allow the body to continue training in addition (no pun intended) to adding more work.  By removing restrictions in your body, like unnecessary tension or extra body weight or lack of flexibility/mobility in a particular area, you then free up resources in your body that were spent holding that tension that you weren’t even aware of on a conscious level.  These restrictions, once removed, allow even greater leaps in performance than simply adding more work.  When the 2 are combined, it’s a powerful combination!

How Do We Program It?

By programming our workouts so that we effectively build in both the removal of restrictive forces, while also increasing driving forces, we can maximize our progress.  This idea is present in traditional methods of Hatha Yoga in the form of balancing strength and surrender.  Contrary to popular opinion, yogi’s do not simply work to become more flexible.  They actively work to increase both strength and flexibility as complimentary opposites in order to achieve a state of balance.  Now, I’m not asking you to become a yogi here, merely pointing out that this is not a new concept at all, but has been used by traditional arts for thousands of years.  Our program for developing ninja-like endurance will utilize both joint mobility exercises and yoga asana (poses), as well as breathing exercises, to aid in the removal of restrictive forces binding your training and slowing your progress.  Next week I will be putting out an article on breathing exercises that can be used for relaxation, stress management, removing residual tension, and also for increasing energy – keep your eyes out!

For an example of some easy yoga postures that can start helping you right now, head over to my good friend Josh Sager’s excellent blog, Fretterverse, and check out my article on Yoga for Guitarists.   A free sample joint mobility training program can be obtained simply by signing up for the Warrior Fitness Mailing List at the top right of the page.  Sign up now and begin working on removing restrictive forces today!

And, don’t forget to check out Warrior Fitness: Conditioning for Martial Artists for more exercises, options, explanations, and program design!

Stay tuned for a sampleStrength Endurance Workout coming soon!