Important Exercise Missing From Your Workout

BY GEOFF NEUPERT, YESTERDAY

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not, but in order for a workout to be any good these days, it has to be “intense.” Or “killer.”

But what if all this intensity isn’t necessarily the best thing for us? What if it’s actually getting in your way, robbing you of the results you’re so desperately looking for?

One of my clients—let's call him Mike—is an entrepreneur. He runs multiple businesses. A couple of years ago, he went through a year that could only be described as “hell on earth.” His wife almost died from alcoholism. Her doctor said she was so anemic from not eating or drinking anything of substance that she was literally days away from death. At the same time, one of his business partners emptied their bank account to the tune of six figures, skipped town, and left Mike holding all of the business liabilities.

A lesser man would’ve crumbled. He didn’t. He kept his businesses open. He remained a father to his two young kids, and he visited his wife daily while seeking counseling for himself. To say that he was “stressed out” would be an understatement.

He also trained with me three days a week.

Did we have “killer” workouts? Heck no. His body was already stressed out to the max, so we did easy strength workouts. We did workouts that didn’t overly tax him, yet made him feel good physically and feel good emotionally. And lots of times we did the “Magic Exercise.”

What’s that? I’d make him lie down on the floor and breathe.That’s it. 

I remember one session he came into the gym and he was really wound up. I turned off the lights and said, “Ok, Mike, lie right there on the floor with your feet up on this chair for as long as you need.”

He did that the whole hour. When he got off the floor, there was a sweat angel underneath him. His body was so stressed out that all he needed to do that day was breathe. It was what he desperately needed both physically and psychologically.

Diaphragmatic breathing—slow, deep breaths that fill your belly—isn’t sexy. It’s not killer or hardcore or badass, but it's a necessity for health and performance. Think about it: Breathing is the very first thing you do when you’re born and it’s the last thing you do before you die. It must be important. Really important.

It balances out your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, allowing your body to function more optimally. It helps reduce the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol, which are more often than not elevated due to stress-filled work environments and a lack of sleep. It's also been reported that diaphragmatic breathing:

    •    Helps lower blood pressure, and therefore the risk of heart disease
    •    Helps lower blood sugar, and therefore the risk of diabetes
    •    Releases serotonin, which not only makes you feel good, but can reduce cravings for processed carbohydrates and other junk food
    •    Eliminates free radicals from the body, improving cellular function and lifespan
    •    Increases the secretion of growth hormone and slows the aging process
    •    Improves mental focus and clarity by increasing blood flow to the pre-frontal cortex of your brain
    •    Improves sleep quality
    •    Facilitates weight loss by balancing stress hormones with anabolic hormones

As you can see, there are some important benefits to regularly practicing diaphragmatic breathing. You can do it to replace a workout when you're overly stressed like Mike did, or you can do it at the end of your workout.

When I owned my group kettlebell training facility, I would always finish my 5: 45 pm classes with 5 to 10 minutes of diaphragmatic breathing. The members would tell me it was the best part of their night. They’d literally peel themselves off the floor and drag themselves out the door, leaving sweat angels behind.

Here's how to do it: Pick a comfortable position to lie down, either on your stomach or on your back. Then close your eyes, think about your favorite vacation, and just breathe for the next 5 minutes or more. You’ll be surprised by not only how good you feel after you’ve done it, but by how well you'll sleep that night and how recovered you'll feel for your next workout.

Sure, diaphragmatic breathing may not be “killer,” but it might just be what you need to end a killer day.