Working breathing is not usually part of our training routine when we propose to improve our performance on the bicycle. However, you should not neglect the
Better breathing techniques.
As? So that? With an appropriate breathing technique it is possible to introduce an extra dose of oxygen into the lungs that will help us improve our performance on the armchair. In other words:
You will roll faster and get less tired.
Some experts encrypt the amount by 10%. Many of the so -called birds, in fact, have almost so much to do with legs that do not go as with a marked lack of oxygen.
Avoid the vicious circle
Breathe well when it circulates by bicycle, and even more if we do it at a high level of physical demand, it has direct implications in our health.
A superficial air intake, in which
The air stays in the chest but does not reach the belly, condemns us to accelerated and agitated breathing. Our muscles will ask more and more oxygen contribution and, as in a vicious circle, we will demand more air.
The consequence of all this is an increase in blood pressure and heart rate, accompanied by lower blood circulation.
The challenge is to move from the 15 or 20 breaths that we have per minute in a normal resting situation, no more than 10.
The key is in the diaphragm
When we are children, without anyone teaching us, we perform complete breaths. It is with the passage of time that we forget it and we go on increasingly superficial breaths. Much of blame is our sedentary habits, which tend to relax our abdominals and reduce both intervertebral and intercostal space.
This acquired vice moves to our position on the bicycle. The key to introducing more oxygen into the body is to involve breathing to the diaphragm. This is a flat muscle, located in the lower part of the rib cage, which contributes to house and release the highest possible volume of air.
But how to take advantage of all that work of this muscle, if we do not leave enough space for him?
A good way to breathe better on the bicycle is to rehearse precisely, far from it. Standing, or sitting in a chair with a straight back, we should breathe slowly and deeply until the air fills the lungs, but also the lower part of these.
The challenge will be to move from 15-20 breaths per minute that we have in a normal rest situation, 10 per minute.
This means that, in a first stage of training in our new breathing, we will dedicate 6 seconds to each breath (3 to the inspiration phase and another 3 to the expiration). Little by little, we can dedicate more seconds to each act of air entrance and exit.
Reserving only 5 minutes a day to practice this new breathing it is possible to obtain improvements in a short time, so that we end up incorporating them automatically.
Once the technique is dominated away from the bicycle, the time will come to put it into practice on the two wheels. At first it will not be as simple as at rest and we will have to perform the slow and deep breath in times of little demand.
Little by little, we can adopt it in situations of greater effort. In order for our thorax to have as much expansion as possible, we must keep in mind at all times that we have to involve the diaphragm in breathing.
There lies the key to our success and improvements that can lead to we roll faster and get less tired.
Practice complementary sports
Some sports such as yoga and pilates can be of great help to improve our breathing. In both air intake is key; In the case of yoga to acquire awareness of all the muscles involved, and in the case of Pilates to know how breathing is combined with other body movements.
In both you get
a correct alignment of the hips, the spine and the head. Through breathing and concentration exercises it is possible to strengthen abdominal, back-lumbar and abdominal muscles, as well as improve the performance of erect muscles in the back.
