Slow Growth to Fast Running
Why the Long Road can often be the shortest path
I’ve been struggling a bit trying to find the best way to describe the benefits of Breath Running (that doesn’t make me sound like a either a supernal guru or a huckster). I’ve been going down endless research rabbit holes trying to expand my understanding of human anatomy, biophysics, and all manner of training technique, in order to elucidate what I have discovered and how it can apply to anyone and everyone, regardless of ability or experience.
It’s becoming clear to me that trying to find solid research that directly relates to Breath Running is scant at best, and most of that research is wide of the mark anyway. Most studies I’ve found either look at people (or animals) running and then seeing how their breathing patterns occur, or focus on set breathing patterns at Top End efforts to see if they make a difference (the few studies like this of which I am aware show that they do, but only slightly). While both of these angles are important to investigate, they fail to look at the unique aspect of the Breath Runner program, which is: using breathing patterns synced to cadence as a way to regulate pace, especially at low effort levels.
Since I can’t seem to find directly relevant research, I’m going to just do my best to expand on what I’ve already published (if you haven’t read it yet, I encourage you to take a look at the Breath Runner Handbook on my website). I welcome anyone with knowledge about the medical side of things to contact me directly and share their wisdom!
Why should a runner sync their breathing with their cadence? This is the Big Question. The short answer: Because it works! But there’s sooooo much more to it, both solidly evidence based reasons as well as other more subtle, nuanced aspects.
Let’s start at the Low End — the low Rating of Perceived Effort (RPE) / low heart rate / low lactate level end of the run spectrum. This should be a runner’s ‘bread and butter’, the type of running that makes up the vast majority of their training. For many, it’s a chore. It’s discouraging, it’s demoralizing, and it’s just not fun. Science tells us unequivocally that it works, but for many, it is difficult to wrap their minds around how running slowly can help them run faster. To try to help make the concept understandable, I’ll offer up what I call the Catering Hall Theory.
Imagine if you will, a catering hall: a building with all the requisite physical requirements needed to host events like weddings, corporate parties, etc. It has walls, a roof, and a floor, maybe even a basement. Throughout the building runs plumbing, gas, electrical, and Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems. There’s the main banquet hall, possibly other smaller banquet or multi-purpose rooms, a kitchen, bathrooms, offices, and storage. Focusing primarily on the banquet hall/rooms, there’s tables, chairs, lighting, dishes, cutlery, tablecloths and other such decor items. The kitchen is loaded with it’s pots & pans, utensils, and appliances needed to prepare meals at scale. Then there’s all the other various items, from pens and paper, computers and printers, and everything else needed in the office, to soap and toilet paper in the bathrooms, mops and buckets and cleaning detergents in the storage room. Then there is the personnel required: the manager(s), kitchen staff, wait staff, cleaning crew, etc. When the personnel have the necessary things, the catering hall is ready for action! How well the catering hall performs is primarily a function of the personnel; how technically well-trained they are, how well synchronized their actions are between groups, and how well they perform day-in and day-out, week after week, month after month.
If the catering hall is able to host events several days a week, sometimes even two or more events on the same day, with minimal need of personnel, and minimal loss of material (glassware, utensils, etc.), then the catering hall will have the best chance of making a profit and prospering! But once in a while, it’s inevitable that a party is going to require maximal staff, and/or get a bit out of control, or that just normal wear & tear may cause an issue at an inconvenient time. Maybe a chair or two gets broken, or even a table. Maybe a major kitchen appliance breaks down, or there’s a plumbing issue in the bathroom, or the HVAC conks out unexpectedly. These things happen, even to the best run catering hall. If this is something which occurs relatively infrequently, then it’s usually no big deal. There’s some extra equipment down in the basement. There’s enough prudent reserve in the operating budget to pay for some new appliances, or system repairs, etc. Even if it’s something that causes the catering hall to have to close down for an extra day or two, or run at reduced capacity for a bit, chances are that it won’t make a difference in the long-term health of the business, as long as it’s an infrequent event.
But if every week there’s a wild, max-effort event, then things are going to get strained after a bit. Maybe replacement hardware or appliances are on back-order, and can’t be replaced immediately. Personnel that are pushed to their limits constantly will start to quit, or worse, become surly towards the customers. Damages begin to mount, and the time needed for repairs grows, while the money needed is dwindling. If this pattern continues unabated, eventually the catering hall is out of business.
Now replace “catering hall” with “your body”. The building represents your bones, organs, and muscles. The personnel represent your metabolic self, your hormonal, neurological, and digestive systems. And of course, there’s Upper Management - your brain, your thoughts and emotions.
So let’s get back to basics. IF you’re serious about training for running, then you need to:
Train your muscles
Train you cardio-pulmonary system
Train your digestive system
Train your hormonal (endocrine) system
Train your nervous system
Collectively, these systems and components are all wired together in to a 37+ trillion cell electrochemical spacesuit known as “Your Body.” That’s what you’re training: your WHOLE body. Yes, some parts will be given greater emphasis than others at points, but when you’re running, every part of your body is involved. For beginners, I find it’s helpful to prioritize training by flipping that list upside down and viewing training through that lens:
Train your nervous system
Train your hormonal (endocrine) system
Train your digestive system
Train your cardio-pulmonary system
Train your muscles
We’ll get to each of these as we go along. But here’s the BIG take-away: If you don’t properly prepare your body for the abuse you’re about to subject it to, then chances are you’re going to end up sick, injured, frustrated and demoralized. In other words, if you’re new to endurance running (for the purposes of this writing, endurance running encompasses everything from a 5K run (five kilometers, or 3.1 miles) up to a marathon (42K, or 26.2 miles) and beyond), what you need to do first is begin ‘training in order to train’. You need to “wake up” ALL the systems in your body, allowing them a chance to begin adjusting to the new demands. Once you’ve built up a foundation of basic strength and endurance, then you can begin training to race.
It has been my experience that when people decide to get up off the proverbial couch and start training for their first race, the first thing they do is they go outside (or to the gym) and see how fast they can run. And on their next run, they try to run as fast or faster, and a little bit farther. And on the next, faster and farther still. Guess where this usually takes them? That’s right - back to the couch, R.I.C.E.ing (R.I.C.E. = Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation; a protocol for treating musculoskeletal injuries developed by Dr. Gabe Mirkin in his 1978 publication, “Sports Medicine Book”. Take note, however, that this is NO LONGER the preferred protocol. In the face of overwhelming evidence that rest and ice can actual inhibit or delay recovery, Dr. Mirkin publicly recanted his original position).
I am of the opinion that many, if not most, novice runners have HEARD that what they need to do is do a lot of slow(er) runs at the beginning of their training. But being new to running, they really don’t know what that entails, nor do they understand why it’s so important. Well, this is my goal - to explain how Breath Running can and does help them to train within the appropriate effort realms for the task at hand (i.e., follow the training plan).
I like to have runners start with a 9-Step breathing pattern. This can be either a 5-Step Inhale, 4-Step Exhale (5/4), or vice versa (4/5). I generally use the 5/4 pattern for Warm-Ups. Why?
It trains the nervous system. In order to inhale across five steps, and then exhale across four, it requires that I keep my stride length relatively short and quick. This does two things at once: One, it’s patterning my neurological system for a fast cadence. Later on in my training, when I really start to push the pace on intervals or hill repeats, my Central Nervous System/Peripheral Nervous System (CNS/PNS) will already be use to a high cadence pattern, so I’ll require less energy to be diverted away from my muscles and into my CNS/PNS than I would otherwise. Note: this is a working theory; to my knowledge, no research directly examining this exists. But there is research which shows that a higher cadence helps prevent injury!
It trains the hormonal (endocrine) system. Two, even though my feet are “speeding up”, my breathing is staying “low and slow.” This intentional slow breathing is signaling to my parasympathetic — my “Rest and Digest” — system. By breathing in a slow, methodical, intentional manner, I am helping my body to stay relatively relaxed, with a relatively low heart rate and low stress levels, even though I am exercising!
It trains the digestive system. When we run, we bounce. It’s a normal part of the run gait. It’s best if we can minimize the bouncing, of course, and this is yet another part of the reason to have a relatively short, relatively rapid cadence. But if we’re running, we’re going airborne with every step, so bouncing is part of the process. All that bouncing causes quite a workout for our internal organs, especially what is arguably the largest and heaviest organ, our digestive tract. Our digestive tract is held in place by a web of fibrous sinew appropriately called convective tissue. By keeping both the vertical aspect of the bouncing and its intensity low, our bodies can better adapt and strengthen these connective tissues, rather than just repair damage.
It trains the cardio-pulmonary system. The process by which endurance is achieved is a long and arduous one; it can’t be rushed. When exercising at a low effort level, our heart rate can still be 50% to 65% of our maximum sustainable heart rate (HRmax). Even at this modest level of exertion, our bodies are being flooded with signals asking for more resources. The increased heart rate is moving higher volumes of blood throughout the body; the left ventricle of the heart, the one which pushes the blood out to the body, needs to get bigger and stronger. The arteries also need to be able to be flexible enough to expand as this increased volume of blood pushes through. More Red Blood Cells (RBCs), which carry oxygen to the muscles and other body parts, are needed.
It trains the muscles. At the muscular level, the additional workload is signaling the need for more muscle fibers and more mitochondria, the organelles which power our muscles. To get the oxygen down to these tiny powerhouses, we need ever more capillaries, the smallest blood vessels in our bodies, throughout the muscle beds. This is a very simplistic overview of an incredibly complex process. But at the end of the training day, the majority of our effort in running is muscular.
To re-cap: when I start my runs, I usually begin by running for the first 5 minutes in a 5/4 breathing pattern. I’m able to gently ‘wake up’ and warm up my muscles, joints, and ligaments, while centering myself mentally by concentrating on full, expansive breaths. Then I’ll switch to a 4/5 pattern for the next 5 minutes, which I find brings my pace up approximately 10%. It’s still a 9-Step pattern, so I’m still running very easy and relaxed, but I find that on the flats, the shorter inhale, longer exhale, just allows me to run at a slightly quicker pace. Often my Long Slow Distance (LSD) training runs stay at 4/5 the rest of the time.
So how does this make me run faster? Because — and again, science backs this up — by staying a relatively low heart rate, low lactate production effort, breathing deeply while holding a relatively high cadence, my body builds strength and stamina. Over time, this allows me to move better with less effort. I can offer a Real World example: after I developed the Breath Runner concept, I began training for some late season half marathon races. When I started training in March, a 9-Step, 5/4 pattern equated to roughly an 11:30ish min/mile pace. When I ran the first Half Marathon race in late September (staying super conservative, as I had two more Halfs scheduled over the next 3 weeks), I ran the first two miles using a 5/4 pattern; I averaged 8:55min/mile.
Of course, this is a N-of-1 study. Yet I’m hearing from others who have adopted Breath Runner strategies and have seen impressive results. Aum Gandhi, Co-Owner of the digital magazine Run-Tri-Bike & professional ultra-runner, told me, “I’ve been applying your breathing techniques to my easy runs and see a drop off of 5 BPM during my Zone 2 efforts.” Again, the key: SLOW GROWTH to Fast Running. This does not happen overnight. It takes weeks and months of steady, consistent, progressive effort. There were plenty of speed-work, hill-work, and various other types of workouts scattered throughout that seven month training block that I did, with the vast majority done in the low to mid-aerobic effort level. So why do Breath Runner? I’m convinced that the action of deep, intentional, controlled breathing while running does more than just allow for a greater exchange of air through my lungs (although that too is part of it!). Stay tuned as I attempt to describe this complex but essential process of breathing while running, step by step (pun intended).
