The key to the right breathing during running
What is the right breathing rhythm? Should I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth? Or vice versa? These questions about the right breathing technique are asked by many runners, especially at the beginning. But it is very simple: your body works in an energy-saving way - you just have to let it do so. If you try to influence your breathing rhythm while running, you are working against nature. In yoga or autogenic training you can work with your breathing, while running you breathe in and out. No more and no less.
When you exhale you release carbon dioxide, when you inhale you take in oxygen. The breathing rhythm that is adapted to your running speed is self-adjusting. Your body adjusts its breathing to the current metabolic rate. The decisive factor is not the oxygen demand, but the amount of carbon dioxide that is produced in the muscle cells during the combustion of oxygen, carbohydrates and fats and is transported with the blood via the heart to the lungs.
There it passes from the blood into the air we breathe and leaves the body via windpipe, nose and mouth. There are receptors in the carotid artery that measure how much carbon dioxide is in the blood. If the carbon dioxide concentration increases, this is reported to the brain, which automatically causes your body to increase the breathing rate. This all happens completely unconsciously. You don't have to think about it.
You can, however, control whether you breathe through your mouth or through your nose. Both have advantages and disadvantages. When you open your mouth slightly, you get much more air in the same period of time than when you breathe through your nose. Breathing through the mouth is more effective. However, the air enters the airways pre-cleaned and warmed up through the nose. That's why you should walk slowly and breathe through your nose when it is very cold in winter.
