How I Breathe To Be Fitter, Stronger & Healthier
What if the fastest way to improve your athletic performance had nothing to do with your muscles, your nutrition, or your willpower to suffer through another workout — but with your breath?
We usually think of progress in terms of strength, endurance, or diet. But your breathing is the hidden lever that shapes recovery, focus, oxygen efficiency, and even your body’s ability to adapt and get stronger. Ignore it, and you leave progress on the table. Master it, and you can transform how you train — and what your training gives back to you.
I’ve spent over 20 years studying movement and breath, from martial arts to mountaintops, and guided hundreds of people through deliberate breathing practices that upgrade their health, resilience, and performance. What I’ve learned is simple: your breath is the remote control for your nervous system — and your nervous system runs the show.
In this post, we’ll explore four ways to use your breath as a performance multiplier:
Shaping your mental state
Optimizing oxygen efficiency
Accelerating adaptation and recovery
Building calm confidence through hypoxic breathwork
1. Breathing to Shape Your Mental State
Think of a time when everything clicked — when you were in flow, each movement seamless. That’s not luck. That’s your mental state, and breath is the gateway to it.
Mental friction is often the real enemy of performance. The hardest lift isn’t always the barbell — it’s lifting yourself off the couch. You know the feeling: inertia wins, comfort whispers louder than discipline. Newton’s first law applies beautifully here — a body at rest stays at rest until acted upon by an external force.
That “external force” can be as simple as your breath.
Overcoming Mental Friction
When I thru-hiked the 4,265-kilometer Pacific Crest Trail, or walked Japan’s 88-temple pilgrimage, there were countless mornings when motivation was nowhere to be found. The distances were too long for willpower alone. Progress came from breaking things down — step by step, breath by breath.
That’s how you overcome resistance: by starting small.
If you feel stuck or unmotivated before training, breathe yourself into action. Take one or two minutes to increase the volume and intensity of your inhalations, letting each exhale go sharply. This intentional over-breathing engages your sympathetic nervous system — your “go” mode — lifting alertness and energy. You’ll feel tingling or lightheadedness as CO₂ drops; if that gets uncomfortable, add a brief 6–15-second hold on full lungs every ten breaths to stabilize CO₂ levels.
This isn’t magic. It’s physics and physiology — a gentle forward lean into movement. Breath first, action second.
Calming Breathwork for Focus
On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes your challenge isn’t starting — it’s staying calm under pressure.
Maybe it’s competition day. Or you’re lining up a precise movement where control matters more than aggression — archery, jiu-jitsu, golf, or even public speaking.
When your arousal spikes, the amygdala (your fear/threat center) hijacks your prefrontal cortex (your planning and reasoning brain). You lose clarity. The antidote? Longer exhales.
Take deep, slow breaths — inhale fully, exhale for about twice as long. This activates the vagus nerve, signaling safety to your nervous system and lowering heart rate. Ten to twenty of these breaths before you train or compete can shift you from anxious to laser-focused. I personally use this before I teach, speak, or compete — it’s like turning static into signal.
2. Breathing for Recovery and Adaptation
Training alone doesn’t make you stronger. Recovery and adaptation do.
And breath is the switch that tells your body when to start that process.
After training, spend five to ten minutes in calming breathwork — box breathing, cyclic sighing, or coherence breathing. This isn’t just “relaxation.” It’s active recovery.
Slow exhalations stimulate the vagus nerve, reducing heart rate and blood pressure while shifting your body from sympathetic “fight-or-flight” into parasympathetic repair mode.
In that state:
Blood flow redistributes to your digestive organs and muscle tissue.
Growth hormone and testosterone increase.
Inflammation markers like cytokines drop.
You’re literally turning on your body’s rebuilding machinery.
And there’s a neurological layer too: as adrenaline fades, chemicals like acetylcholine and BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) rise — both crucial for motor learning. That’s how your nervous system encodes new movement patterns.
Ancient martial arts always ended with breathing or meditation. Modern neuroscience now confirms why: quiet breath locks in the learning.
Think of your training as the input, and your recovery breathing as the “save button” that stores the progress.
3. Breathing for Oxygen Efficiency
Let’s talk oxygen — the misunderstood fuel.
We tend to assume more oxygen equals better performance, but that’s only half the story. The real key is oxygen delivery, not oxygen intake.
Here’s the paradox: when you over-breathe (rapid or shallow breaths), you blow off too much CO₂, which is the molecule that tells hemoglobin — the oxygen taxi in your blood — to drop off its passengers. This relationship is called the Bohr Effect.
Without enough CO₂, hemoglobin holds onto oxygen like a stingy cab driver. Your muscles starve for air even though you’re gasping.
So, the goal isn’t breathing more — it’s breathing better.
How to Train This
CO₂ Tolerance Training:
During light runs or warm-ups, slow your breathing or add short breath-holds. This raises your CO₂ threshold, improving oxygen delivery and reducing the feeling of breathlessness.
Nasal Breathing:
Nasal breathing increases nitric oxide, a natural vasodilator that widens blood vessels and enhances oxygen transport. It also slows breathing rhythm, helping you maintain CO₂ balance.
(Some athletes use mouth tape during low-intensity training to encourage this — but if it compromises your performance, skip it. The point is awareness, not restriction.)
Breath training doesn’t replace zone-2 runs or VO₂ max work — it amplifies them. When you master oxygen efficiency, every stride, lift, or strike becomes more economical.
4. Hypoxic Breathwork for Calm Confidence
Confidence isn’t loud. It’s calm.
Real confidence — the kind that stays steady under pressure — comes from controlling your internal environment when the external one gets chaotic. Hypoxic breathwork trains exactly that.
By alternating between deep, fast breathing (which lowers CO₂ and raises adrenaline) and extended breath holds (which trigger mild oxygen deprivation), you simulate high-stress physiological conditions while staying calm and aware. You’re training your body to stay composed inside the storm.
Here’s how:
Inhale deeply and rapidly for about 90 seconds.
Exhale fully, then hold your breath as long as comfortably possible.
Take one deep inhale, hold for 15–30 seconds.
Repeat for 3–4 rounds.
That’s the basic structure of my Hormesis Breathwork practice. Twenty minutes in the morning can change your entire day — less reactivity, more presence. It’s like tempering steel: exposing yourself to controlled stress so you emerge stronger and calmer.
The Breath Behind Every Breakthrough
Your breath shapes your biology. It governs focus, emotion, endurance, and adaptation. And the best part — it’s free, portable, and always available.
Whether you’re an athlete, a martial artist, or simply someone who wants to train smarter, mastering your breath is the most direct path to mastery itself.
If you want a step-by-step guide to integrate these methods into your training routine, download my free Athletic Breathwork Guide — it breaks down all four strategies plus practical protocols you can apply immediately.
And if you’re ready to go deeper into deliberate breathing and avoid the common mistakes most people make, check out my next article (or video): “The Most Common Breathwork Mistakes — and How to Fix Them.”
