Don’t breath only through your nose during exercise
Posted January 8th, 2007 at 11:00 AM by Jamal Walker
Section: Running & Training, Training Tips, Health & Fitness, Exercise
People who exercise with their mouths closed aren’t working very hard. You can’t get enough air through your nose to meet your needs for oxygen when you exercise vigorously.
The cross sectional area of the openings in your nose is less than one-tenth the opening in the back of your mouth. That space is so narrow that when you pick up the pace, you could turn blue if you failed to open your mouth …
Your nose clears pollutants far more efficiently than your mouth does, but people with healthy lungs can exercise safely on polluted days. Pollutants that you breathe in through your mouth can be quickly cleared from your lungs. Your air tubes are lined with small hairs, called cilia, that sweep pollutants towards your mouth where you swallow them with your saliva and they pass from your body. If you are concerned on high-pollution days, you can wear a mask or exercise away from automobile traffic.
Some people believe that exercising with your mouth open in very cold weather could harm your lungs, because your nose warms the air much more than your mouth does. However, exercise causes your body to produce such large amounts of heat that air taken through your mouth at 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit will be warmed almost 100 degrees before it reaches your lungs. Breathing air that cold would burn and hurt so much that you would quickly lose interest in exercising and seek shelter.
This post is written by Dr. Gabe Mirkin, M.D.. Dr. Mirkin is board certified in Sports Medicine and has practiced for over 40 years. He has completed more than 40 marathons and was a talk show host of a nationally-syndicated radio program for about 25 years. For more articles by Dr. Mirkin, please check out: www.DrMirkin.com
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Tags: air, breathing, heat, lungs, mouth, nose, oxygen, pollutants, pollution, saliva, warm air
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The Final Sprint
“People who exercise with their mouths closed aren’t working very hard. You can’t get enough air through your nose to meet your needs for oxygen when you exercise vigorously.”
If this is true, how do boxers keep their mouths closed for the entire three minute round and only breathe through their noses? When I boxed, I did all of my training with my mouthpiece in breathing through my nose.
September 8th, 2007 at 8:08 pm“People who exercise with their mouths closed aren’t working very hard. You can’t get enough air through your nose to meet your needs for oxygen when you exercise vigorously.”
WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG! im not a mean person but that is such a stupid observation by someone who has ran marathons. im an asthmatic and i can run a 10 minute 1 1/2 mile breathing solely through my nose. i can also run 5k without stopping and solely breathing through my nose (and i dont run slow either)
September 21st, 2007 at 8:36 pmI am currently doing 3-minute 98% VO2 max intervals breathing only through the nose! And it feels great! I am about 1% slower at the moment, but I speed up each week.
October 17th, 2008 at 1:39 amIn my case, I can run longer if I breath in through my nose and breath out through my mouth.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:35 am