EP51, Breathe Better

Are you breathing wrong without even knowing it?

You take about 20,000 breaths a day, and most of them are on autopilot. But how you breathe shapes your sleep, your stress, your workouts, and how fast you recover. This solo episode breaks down three simple shifts that change how you train and how you live.

In this episode, we deep dive into:

• Why your breath is the most underused tool you already own: Breathing is the only system that's both automatic and under your control. It's the bridge between your conscious brain and your nervous system, and it's how you tell your body whether you're safe or in danger. Shallow chest breathing sends a stress signal. Slow diaphragm breathing sends a safety signal.
• Nose vs mouth breathing and why it matters: Your nose is built for breathing, your mouth is built for eating and talking. Nose breathing filters the air, humidifies it, and produces nitric oxide that helps oxygen move into your bloodstream more efficiently. Mouth breathing during sleep is linked to worse sleep, dry mouth, and worse cardiovascular markers. Learn when to default to nose, and when the mouth becomes your gear shift.
• Box breathing, the 60 second nervous system reset: Four in, four hold, four out, four hold. Four rounds, one minute total. Used by the military, ER docs, and elite athletes because it works fast. We break down exactly when to pull it out, including before a hard workout, before a tough conversation, in the parking lot before walking into the gym, or in bed when your brain won't shut off.
• How to brace under the bar: A big breath through the nose, down into the belly, then brace your core like someone's about to punch you. That intra-abdominal pressure is what protects your spine on heavy squats and deadlifts. Plus the simple rule for when to exhale on each rep, and why holding your breath through a whole set is a mistake.
• Rhythmic breathing for runners: A 3-3 pattern for easy pace, 2-2 when you're pushing. Why finding your rhythm is one of the hardest skills for new runners to develop, and why it changes everything once you do.

The Unstoppable Challenge:

Pick ONE technique from this episode and use it once in the next week. Could be box breathing in your car before work, the brace on your next heavy lift, or rhythmic breathing on your next run. Notice what shifts and DM Matt on Instagram @juggernautmatt to share which one you tried.

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Breath Matters

Matt 0:00

Let's go. Welcome to Unstoppable by Design, where we talk all things fitness, mindset, and what it means to truly be unstoppable inside and outside the gym. Today's episode, we're going to be talking about breathing. You take about 20,000 breaths a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. And for most of us, every single one of them is on autopilot. We don't think about it until we're gasping at the top of a workout or lying awake at 2 a.m. with our heart pounding. So today I want to talk about the most underused tool we already have, and that's our breath. And three small changes to how you breathe can change how you train, how you recover, and how you handle the hard moments in your day. So let's dive in. All right. So why does breathing matter? So breathing is the only system that's both automatic and under your control. That's the big deal. It's the bridge between your conscious brain and your nervous system. For example, you can't control how often or how quickly your heart beats, but sometimes controlling your breathing then also affects that. You can't control how fast your digestive system works by thinking about it. But again, you can control that with your breathing. And the way that you breathe tells your body whether you're safe or in danger. Shallow chest breathing sends a stress signal. You know, that very fast that means, hey, I'm stressed out. I need to get this oxygen to my body. We got to go fast. Whereas slow diaphragm breathing sends a safety signal, like, hey, it's time to relax, time to reset things. This isn't all touchy-feely woo-woo. It's nervous system physiology, and it's completely free for you to learn. Most people only think about breathing when something's wrong. And today we want to flip that a little bit. So the first thing I want to talk about is nose versus mouth breathing. Your nose is built for breathing. Smelling too, but it's built for breathing. Your mouth's built for eating and talking, and it also handles breathing as well. But your nose, as you're breathing,

Nose Breathing Versus Mouth Breathing

Matt 2:14

it filters air, it humidifies it, it produces nitric oxide, and helps oxygen get into your bloodstream more efficiently. Mouth breathing during sleep is linked to worse sleep quality, dry mouth, and worse cardiovascular markers. You know if you're a mouth breather when you're sleeping, because when you wake up, your mouth could just be like you've eaten sand, like very, very dry. That's a sign that you're mouth breathing when you're sleeping. At an easy and moderate effort, you can train yourself to nose breathe. It feels harder at first. Stick with it though. Keep pushing pushing your way through. Your CO2 tolerance improves and you'll hold pace longer without feeling like you're suffocating. When effort spikes in a heavy set, a sprint, or the last round of an AMRAP, mouth breathing is fine and necessary, but default to nose and use your mouth as the gear shift when time goes on. General rule of thumb: if you can't nose breathe at your current effort, you're either pushing harder than you think or your conditioning has room to grow. All right, let's talk about box breathing. So we've all heard the four counts in, four count hold, four count out, and then a four count hold as well. You repeat that four times, it takes about a minute total. This is used by the military, ER docs, elite athletes,

Box Breathing For Fast Calm

Matt 3:33

and it all comes down to why. And it's because it works in under a minute. What's actually happening is you're forcing your nervous system out of that fight or flight mode and into rest and digest. The long exhale in the hold activates your vagus nerve. And when to use it is before a hard workout to kind of dial in the focus. And so that could be let's say you just finished the pre-wad and you're getting ready. You're trying to settle your heart after your body's warmed up. It's a good place to practice box breathing. Right? Or it could be before a tough conversation. We've had those conversations in our life where you're like, oh God, how is this going to go? I'm very scared of how this is going to go, or I'm worried that I'm going to get into a fight. A good time to bring in box breathing is before these conversations. Uh, we could use it in the parking lot before walking into the gym for the first time, or even just walking into the gym that day. Maybe you see a movement that is stressing you out, or you're worried about it. In the parking lot before you even walk in, use box breathing. Uh it could also be used in bed when your brain won't turn off. Uh, we've all had that. I know as a kid I used to try to count sheep because that was everywhere. There were books on it. It was what my parents said before going to bed. I don't know that that really worked more than just another way to calm me down. And I think box breathing is a little more practical, but it definitely has its place in bed if you're like, you just can't stop thinking about the next day. It's the closest thing to calming down that's free that exists, and most people never use it. All right, let's talk about breathing in your training and specifically on the strength work. We're gonna talk about bracing our core. In order to brace, you want to do a big breath in through our nose, down into our belly. Now, as you're breathing, you can see is your chest rising more?

Bracing And Breathing On Lifts

Matt 5:29

Can you get your chest to one spot and then watch your belly fill? But I want you to think about getting that breath in through your nose, down into your belly. We're gonna hold it there and we're gonna brace our core like someone's about to punch you, right? So I want you to think like, hey, the air's down here, somebody is gonna punch me, hopefully not. I mean, that's that's aggressive, but you know what? It's it let's just picture that it's gonna happen. They're about to, and then you move the weight, like you lift either a back squat or a deadlift or something of that nature. That's how you start to brace. All right, there's there's a lot more to it. We can really coach you into this, but those are the the simple principles. What this does is it creates intra-abdominal pressure that protects your spine on heavy lifts, like I said, the squat, the deadlift, anything with load. What does not work and what you sometimes hear is just like exhale completely and then completely flex your core. Just flex your abs. We'll give that cue, you know, like flex your stomach, make sure it's tight, it's not loose, because we do want to create pressure there, but we want to be more accurately in a uh bracing mode for the core. And don't hold your breath for the whole set. Exhale at the top of each rep. Uh, breathe again at the bottom. So, what I want you to really think about with this is when we push, we breathe out, right? So the bench press, as we're pressing away from the chest, we're exhaling. Uh with the squat, as we're coming away from the floor, we're exhaling forcefully. And then when we breathe at the top, we catch our breath. We don't hold our breath going down. Maybe we're breathing in as we go, but we just really want to make sure that that stomach and that core is braced. Now, if we're thinking about cardio and running, we want to think more about rhythmic breathing. So rhythmic breathing matters more than people realize. On easy runs, I mean, the first thing to try is try a three to three pattern. Three steps you're

Rhythmic Breathing For Running

Matt 7:27

breathing in, three steps you're breathing out. Now, if you're if you're pushing the pace and you're running a little bit faster, that's not gonna work. Try switching to a two and a two. But whatever it is, find what works for you. Just make sure that you are able to settle into a pattern where you can almost do it subconsciously and develop that skill. It's one of the hardest things to figure out, but once you do have it, it's it's gonna make all of the difference in trying to gather your breath before coming back in from a running section in the workout. All right, so we talked about a couple different things with breathing. And for your unstoppable challenge this week, I want you to pick one of those to use within the next week. Maybe it's box breathing for 60 seconds, and that's for in, for hold,

Weekly Challenge And Support The Show

Matt 8:15

for out, for hold again. Total of four rounds, that's it. Could be in your car before work or you know, before going to bed, or right before a workout, but just pick one of the things that we mentioned before, pay attention to it, use it this this upcoming week, notice what shifts, and then let us know. I want to know if you used it and if it was successful for you or what you felt uh was the difference. And before we let you go, if you want to support our show, our raffles right around the corner. It's a Friday, June 6th, and we're giving away again a seat to our ultimate boot camp challenge. And it goes out to one of our monthly supporters. For as little as $3 a month, you're in the draw, and it's going to be helping us keep this podcast going. So, link for support is in the show notes. If you've been listening for a while and getting value, this is the simplest way uh to give to what we're doing here. All right, and that's it. So we'll see you next week. And until next time, be well. The unstoppable.