AI-generated image of Coach JP as "The Terminator" - LOL
How to Breathe Better and Why It Changes Everything
The Calm in the Chaos
It was snowing in August...WTF?
That’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think back to the 2024 Spartan Race Kelowna Ultra. Midway up a steep climb, snowflakes were swirling through the air, the temperature dropping by the minute. I remember the sound of laboured breathing all around me, the sharp inhales, the desperate gasps, the muttered “I can’t” that always seem to surface when the course starts breaking people.
And then there was me, moving steadily, one foot after another, breathing slow and deep.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not some elite mountain athlete. Heck, I’m not even very fast. Never have been and maybe never will be. But I just…don’t…stop. I’m like the Terminator out there, relentless, steady, focused. As I made my way up that mountain, I could feel the difference that my months of practice made. The elevation repeats on my local trails, where I’d learned to stay tall, keep rhythm, and belly breathe no matter how hard my legs burned, had done their job.
I could hear other racers struggling on the sides of the trail, gasping for air, shaking out cramps. I even caught a few whispers, “He’s not human,” “That dude’s insane.” The funny thing is, I know exactly how they felt. I was that gasping racer once, back at the 2017 Sun Peaks Beast, watching the Ultra competitors seemingly glide past while I felt like I was dying, thinking those same thoughts.
The difference between that version of me and the one grinding up the Kelowna slopes wasn’t just about fitness. It was also about breathing.
Why Breathing Matters More Than Most People Realise
We all breathe, but few of us ever really train it. And that’s a shame, because your breath affects almost everything that matters, your performance, your recovery, your composure, and even how well you handle the stress of daily life.
At the simplest level, breathing is how we exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide. But the deeper truth is that your breath acts as a control mechanism for your nervous system. It determines whether your body is in go mode or recover mode, whether you’re bracing, building tension, or letting it go.
In strength training, the timing of your breath determines how effectively you can generate and maintain tension. Breathing out too early, or at the wrong point in the lift, means losing pressure, and pressure is what stabilises your core and protects your spine. Holding your breath too long, on the other hand, spikes blood pressure and leaves you dizzy and unfocused.
During conditioning or endurance work, intentional breathing does something just as important. It helps control your pacing. It keeps you calm when your body starts to panic. In races, the people who can breathe rhythmically are often the ones who last longest. They’re not necessarily the fittest, they’re the most composed.
And beyond the gym, breathing is the most accessible way to influence your stress response. A few slow, controlled breaths can shift you from high alert to grounded. It’s a skill, one that, once developed, starts bleeding into every part of your life. I first started to grasp that connection years ago, oddly enough, at a billiards table, learning how a single calm breath could steady my focus between shots. I wrote about that experience in my Mindset Monday article How You Build (or Break) Self-Trust with Every Choice (www.btgfitness.com/blog/build-or-break-self-trust).
…and just to balance the ego scale out, an image of me dying on the ground with severe cramping in the clover field during the 2023 Summer Spartan Death Race. Not so unstoppable THAT time…LOL. I did last 24 hours though. ;)
The Most Common Breathing Mistakes in the Gym
After years of coaching, I can safely say that most people aren’t bad lifters, but a fair number of them are bad breathers. Here are the patterns I see most often:
Holding the Breath
When things get hard, instinct kicks in and people hold their breath. They grit their teeth, brace too hard, and forget to let go. The problem is that without an exhale, pressure builds unevenly, form breaks down, and recovery between sets slows to a crawl.Chest Breathing During Recovery
After a tough set or interval, most people stay in panic mode, shoulders up, chest heaving, breathing fast and shallow. That kind of breathing keeps your nervous system stuck in high gear. You never truly recover before the next round, which is why your second and third sets feel twice as hard.Poor Synchronisation with Movement
Many people breathe out at the wrong point, exhaling too early in a lift, or inhaling when they should be creating tension. The rule of thumb is simple: exhale through the effort, inhale through the reset. It’s not fancy, but it’s effective.Hands-on-Knees Recovery
The debate around bent-over versus standing recovery posture gets a lot of attention. Some studies suggest that leaning forward improves oxygenation because it lets your diaphragm move more freely, and that’s fair. But personally, I think there’s more to it.
Standing tall and consciously controlling your breath signals to your body that you’re in charge. It’s a psychological cue, a declaration of calm control. In competition, it also sends a clear message to everyone else: you’re fine, they’re not. I’ve seen it play out over and over again, and that perception alone can shift momentum.
That said, making the tall posture work takes practice. You can’t just “fake it” while your chest and belly are still heaving and your body is screaming to fold forward. True tall recovery means you’ve trained yourself to breathe deeply and slowly enough that standing upright actually is recovery, not just a performance. And when you can reach that point, it’s one of the strongest signals of composure you can give, both to yourself and everyone watching.
Over the past several years, I've often found myself working out with younger, stronger training partners. They might outlift me early on, but calm, steady breathing lets me keep moving while they’re gasping between sets. It’s a quiet satisfaction watching “old age and treachery” overcome youth and speed, one smooth exhale at a time.
The Physiology of Calm and Control
Your nervous system has two main branches that constantly interact.
The Sympathetic Nervous System is your “fight, flight, or focus” mode. It’s the system that drives heavy lifts, sprints, and high-stress situations. It raises heart rate, increases blood pressure, and releases adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones make you more alert and powerful in the moment, but they also come at a cost when they stay elevated for too long.
The Parasympathetic Nervous System is your “rest, digest, and recover” mode. It slows your heart rate, lowers blood pressure, and redirects energy toward digestion, tissue repair, and recovery. In this state, cortisol levels decline and hormones such as serotonin and melatonin become more active, supporting calm focus, balanced mood, and restorative sleep.
Neither is good or bad. You need both. The key is learning how to shift between them deliberately. Fast, shallow breaths tell your body you’re under threat. Slow, deep, rhythmic breaths signal safety. Within minutes, that shift lowers cortisol and rebalances your internal chemistry.
Over time, this skill strengthens something called vagal tone, which is your body’s ability to switch gears quickly. The higher your vagal tone, the faster you can move from high alert to calm focus in training, in work, or in life.
When and Why to Use Each State
The goal isn’t to stay in one state or the other, but to understand when each is useful.
Use Your Sympathetic System for Bursts of High Output.
You want this state during short, high-intensity work, heavy lifts, or anything that demands power and aggression. The surge of adrenaline and cortisol releases glucose and sharpens motor control, letting you perform at your peak.Use Your Parasympathetic System for Recovery and Endurance.
Between sets, intervals, or rounds, slowing your breath helps shift you back toward parasympathetic control. This speeds up heart-rate recovery, clears metabolic byproducts, and prepares you for the next bout.
During longer endurance sessions, staying parasympathetic for as long as possible conserves fuel and keeps you efficient by favouring fat oxidation instead of burning through glycogen too early.
The better you become at controlling your breathing, the better you become at controlling your performance. You’re not just training muscles, you’re training your nervous system.
How Stress and Hormones Affect Body Composition
Chronic sympathetic activation, the constant “on” state most modern adults live in, can have a profound impact on body composition.
When cortisol stays elevated for too long, your body starts prioritising survival over long-term health. It breaks down muscle tissue for glucose, stores more energy as fat (especially around the midsection), and becomes less responsive to insulin. That’s why people under chronic stress often struggle with stubborn fat loss, poor energy, and inconsistent performance despite good habits.
High cortisol levels also reduce fat oxidation. The body becomes reliant on quick glucose for energy, even at rest. Over time, that decreases mitochondrial efficiency and lipolytic enzyme activity, making it harder to burn fat effectively. Combine that with disrupted sleep and increased cravings from hormonal shifts in leptin and ghrelin, and you get the familiar pattern of “doing everything right” but seeing little change.
Regular activation of your parasympathetic system helps reverse this. Deep breathing, adequate recovery, and better sleep lower cortisol, restore hormonal balance, and improve metabolic flexibility. Your body becomes better at using fat for energy, maintaining muscle, and staying leaner with less effort.
Simply put: calm physiology works better.
Training the Skill from the Ground Up
The good news is that breathing (and using your breathing to influence your nervous system state) is a trainable skill. Like strength or endurance, it improves with awareness and repetition.
Here’s the exact method I teach, which I first learned years ago from Mike Robertson, who has since deepened his own work on breathing and performance, including concepts he’s explored from the Postural Restoration Institute (www.posturalrestoration.com). You can find Mike’s excellent resources at www.robertsontrainingsystems.com.
Begin by lying on your back, feet flat and knees up.
Put your right hand on your belly, left hand on your chest.
As you inhale deeply and smoothly through your nose, focus on expanding your diaphragm and filling your belly up like a balloon.
As you exhale, focus on using your diaphragm to push the air out slow and controlled.
Your right hand should be moving much further and faster than your left hand.
Ideally your left hand should barely be moving at all.
DEEP, smooth inhales, SLOW, smooth exhales.
When you feel like you've got the pattern nailed down you can lay your hands at your sides.
This drill teaches you to breathe with your diaphragm instead of your chest. Practise it lying down, seated, on all fours, and standing. The all-fours position helps strengthen your exhale, while standing adds real-world application. Once this pattern feels natural, start using it between sets, during recovery, or even on easy cardio days. You’ll notice that your heart rate drops faster and your focus sharpens almost immediately.
Beyond the Gym: Breath as a Life Skill
What I love most about breathing practice is how far it reaches beyond training. The same skills that help you push through a brutal hill repeat can help you stay calm in traffic, keep your cool on a tense phone call, sit through a stressful midterm exam without freaking out, or walk into a meeting without your heart racing.
I’ve used it countless times outside the gym. When I feel that familiar tension rise, the pulse quickening, the breath shortening, I take one slow inhale through the nose, one longer exhale through the mouth, and feel the gears shift. It doesn’t erase stress, but it takes control of it.
Teaching clients to do the same has changed everything for them too. Once they learn how to use their diaphragm and slow their exhale, they start noticing it everywhere, in parenting, in sleep, in conversations. Breath becomes an anchor.
Every time you take control of your breath, you send a simple but powerful signal to your body: I’m safe. I’ve got this.
The Takeaway: Calm Control in Action
Breathing isn’t just a reflex, it’s a skill, and one of the most underrated skills in both performance and life.
The difference between the athlete who panics and the one who performs isn’t always strength or stamina. It’s rhythm. It’s composure. It’s the ability to stay calm under pressure, to use the breath as both a stabiliser and a reset.
If you want to test it for yourself, here’s a simple challenge.
For one week, take just two minutes a day to practise the diaphragmatic breathing drill. Then, once a day, use that same slow, steady pattern during a stressful moment, at work, in traffic, mid-workout, wherever it fits.
It won’t take long to notice the shift. You’ll feel calmer, more deliberate, more capable. You might even find that your workouts feel smoother, your runs steadier, your recovery quicker.
Because breathing isn’t just what keeps you alive. It’s what keeps you in control when life turns up the pressure.