Hard to breathe when you run? Read this!

I settled down last evening with my trusty training partner "Watts" to enjoy a good book, but since I couldn't find one, I read a chapter on Human Anatomy and Physiology.

But before we get started, here's a video of Watts on his latest training run:

Obviously his muscles aren't fully developed yet, which leads us into our discussion.

Just before dozing off into a blissful rest after nearing the end of the chapter on the respiratory system, I found something that I thought the athletes that I train with might find interesting.  Here is an excerpt from "The Essentials of Exercise Science":

"The muscles of respiration adapt to regular exercise training, as do the locomotor skeletal muscles.  Regular endurance exercise increases the oxidative capacity of respiratory muscles, which improves respiratory muscle endurance.  This is important because respiratory muscles have been shown to fatigue with exercise, adversely affecting the ability to breathe during both moderate-and high-intensity activities.  Improving respiratory muscles endurance enhances exercise performance at various intensities".

So there you have it!  If you're having difficulty breathing easily while exercising - be patient!  It does take the body time to adapt to the workload, but eventually there will be an improvement in your ability to breathe during bouts of intense (and even moderate) exercise!