Expert: Alan Kahn - 2/24/2006

Question
what is the best method for keeping your breathing controled and not becoming out of breath so quickly when hitting the heavy bag.is it realy possible to exhale on each punch especialy when throwing fast combinations.i tend to get my breathing all out of sync could you please give me some advice on this .

    kind regards anthony gladwell

Answer
Hi Anthony,

Breath control is important, and it really contains two elements. First, it depends on you physical conditioning. the better you cardiovascular conditioning, the more you can do without "getting winded" or laboring to breath.

the second issue is knowing how to control your breathing, both inhaling and exhaling, for a specific activity. Many sports and athletic performances are dependent on breath control during performance. For boxing activity, it is NOT necessary to exhale on every single punch. What is important is to learn to try and not "inhale" during a punch. Try to sync your inhaling to occur between punches. During a flurry of hard punches, you can exhale on any of them, but most people have their own pattern of exhaling during combinations, exhaling slightly or forcefully on certain punches within the combination. Again, if you run out of breath during a flurry, take a short quick inhale between punches.

Focus on breathing in through the nose more than through the mouth.

Experiment with it a little and do things slowly at first to find what is comfortable. With time and practice, you will start to find a comfortable pattern to breathing during your workouts.

Good luck and train safely.

sincerely,

Alan Kahn
author, The Speed Bag Bible
http://www.putfile.com/speedbag