Improving Lung Capacity for Running

Last updated on April 14th, 2021 at 05:25 pm

Sometime between the ages of 20 and 25, human lungs become fully mature. Once we reach the age of 30 to 35, our lung functionality may begin to decline. Declining lung functionality is a natural thing that everyone faces. There are, however, ways to ensure that your lungs are performing optimally. If you are a runner, this is good news. This post delves into improving lung capacity for running.

What is Lung Capacity

What is lung capacity? It is basically the total amount of air that our lungs can hold. The greater the lung capacity, the greater volume of oxygen that can pass through our body and into our bloodstream, enabling it to carry out functions properly. Through a process called gas exchange, as oxygen moves throughout the body, excess carbon dioxide gets moved out of the body. If we have poor lung capacity and therefore a less than optimal volume of oxygen, carbon dioxide can build up and lead to issues in the brain, heart, and other parts of the body.

Fortunately, there are a number of ways to take control and improve your lung capacity through several healthy actions (or inactions). As a runner, you are already a step ahead of the average person in regularly exercising your lungs to increase oxygen in your body cells that need them (think muscles, for example). If running is your passion and you to want to improve your lung capacity to take on more challenging running activities, there are specific strategies you can take. The following are recommendations to take to expand your lung capacity, one breath at a time.

Healthy lungs require some fundamental lifestyle choices. Below are a few tips on what you should not incorporate into your daily life if you want to improve your lung capacity.

Don’t live a sedentary lifestyle

Try to maintain a steady balance of aerobic and anaerobic activity. Staying still– resting– most of the day is never healthy.

Minimize your exposure to indoor and outdoor air pollution

Since we spend most of our time indoors, it is important to take actions that promote healthy indoor air quality. Be sure to replace air filters regularly and have an understanding of common building materials that may off-gas harmful particulates and volatile organic compounds. Older buildings can have especially poor indoor air quality since they were constructed during times in which there were fewer building codes intended to protect public health.

Also, when exercising outside, make sure you will be exerting yourself in an area with healthy air quality. This can be checked easily with most common weather apps on your phone. If you live in an area of high traffic congestion, heavy industry, or high risk of natural disaster like wildfires, you may be more susceptible to air pollutants. Indoor and outdoor air quality issues can create negative health outcomes like lung disease and asthma. Here are some public health issues that can affect lung health.

Don’t smoke

Especially if you are a runner. It is just dumb. Smoking immediately puts you at greater risk of lung cancer and other health issues. Poor lung capacity will be the least of your concerns if you smoke.

Get checkups

Regularly going to the doctor is a good body maintenance practice. Even when we are feeling healthy, something could be going wrong inside that a doctor is trained to recognize. This is especially true with lung health. Usually we aren’t aware of serious lung health issues until the condition has gotten very bad; preventive care and regular checkups will catch things before they get serious.

Breathing Exercises

Below we go through a number of breathing exercises that may just help you get your lungs to operate at their maximum capacity.

Diaphragmatic Breathing

The diaphragm is a large muscle found at the base of the lungs that is used for breathing with the assistance of the abdominal muscles. By using a technique called deep diaphragmatic breathing, you can exercise the muscle to help it function very efficiently. According to Cleveland Clinic, the breathing technique will strengthen the diaphragm, slow your heart rate to ease the “work” of breathing, decrease oxygen demand, and use less energy overall to breathe.

Here is the exercise:

Lie on your back with your head on a pillow. Bend your knees (you can put a pillow underneath them to make it more comfortable).
Put one hand on your chest and another on your belly just under your ribs.
Breathe in through your nose, letting your belly expand but trying not to let your chest move.
Exhale by tightening your stomach muscles and let the air out through pursed lips.

You can also use a similar strategy sitting in a chair.

Pursed Lip Breathing

Whenever you are feeling short of breath, pursed lip breathing is an effective technique that will help relieve you and relax your lungs. Other benefits of pursed lip breathing include regulating air moving in and out of your lungs (old air out, new air in), slowing your breathing by extending the process of exhalation, and helping you to use less energy while breathing. Here are the steps:

Inhale normally through your nose for about two seconds.
Purse your lips as if you’re about to whistle.
Exhale out of your mouth for an extended period, counting to four. Do not push the air out. Let it come out normally.

Rhythmic Breathing

Breathing in a pattern while running improves efficiency and can even help to prevent an injury. The approach is simple, but it requires practice. Establish a method of breathing that prevents you from exhaling on the same step every time. This repetitive activity can actually cause undue stress on your body, causing you to use more energy and potentially get an injury.

If you breathe in a way that allows you to exhale each time on opposite steps, you can balance out the effort. Another strategy is to breathe in for a few steps and then breath out for two. Your breathing actually slows with this method, potentially prolonging your efficiency over the course of the run.

Zone In

Focusing on breathing during a difficult run helps to center your mind. When a run becomes challenging, it is easy to flail and lose focus. You think about the pain that you’re feeling and what you are doing wrong to cause this pain. You think about quitting, or about the bottle of water or snack you have waiting for you at the end of your run. Soon all you want to do is be done and you lose your progress. In moments like these, eliminate all other externalities and only focus on the rhythm of your breathing. Three steps in, two steps out. Three steps in, two steps out. Focus on breathing from your belly. Feel your heart rate slow as you take these deep breaths. In, out. In, out. Before you know it, you are in the zone and running efficiently again.

Breathing to Relieve Side Cramps

Side cramps can result from poor blood circulation and lack of adequate oxygen to the diaphragm while running. Proper, regulated breathing can help to improve both of these things to avoid cramps altogether (in addition to eating properly before a run). Sometimes, though, you can feel like you’ve done everything right and still get a side cramp. To relieve this annoyance during a run, repeat controlled breathing in a slow pattern. Breathe in for two steps and breathe out on the third. Or, if you can go slower, breathe in for three steps and breathe out for two. Try to breathe from your belly, which will help you to relax your muscles. Placing light pressure with your hand on the cramped area can also help.

Running Habits to Improve Lung Capacity for Running

It may go without saying, but a lifestyle that incorporates physical exercise is great for improving lung capacity. The act of running helps train the body to handle exertion and build stamina. If you’re a person who doesn’t usually exercise or are changing your lifestyle to be more physically active, it is important not to take on too much all at once. Much like lifting weights, you can’t just dive right in and grab the largest dumbbells you see. Strength and lung capacity require measured steps, starting slowly, and building on progress. This is especially important at the very beginning stages of your running program.

Slow and Steady

When you are just getting started with running, start slowly. Run at a pace that makes it comfortable to breathe. You should be able to have a conversation with someone while you are running at this pace. Try to build your stamina at this stage by keeping the same pace but going for longer distances with each run.

Run More Frequently

As you build your stamina, gradually increase how frequently you run each week. Remember your breathing techniques before and during your runs so that you can train consistently as you increase the number of times you train.

Interval and Speed Training

Building upon your increased running distances and frequency, consider incorporating interval, tempo, fartlek, or other increased intensity running exercises that can roll into your regular running regimen. Interval running is a combination of short, intense runs followed by equal or longer recovery times throughout one running exercise. Tempo runs involve working just above your comfort zone, and fartleks are unstructured combinations of hard and easy bouts of running.

As your fitness becomes more refined, altitude training is an advanced method that you may want to explore to further improve your lung capacity. We’ll explore this next.

Altitude Training and Simulated Altitude Training

Altitude training is done at or above 5000 feet above sea level, or in a setting that simulates the environment at that altitude. Athletes train at high altitudes because of the physiological advantages it provides with time. It is more challenging at high altitudes to move oxygen through the body due to less barometric pressure in the atmosphere to help push it along. The body reacts by producing more red blood cells to ease the work of carrying the oxygen through the body, and in turn the body performs better at normal sea level.

If you do not live near an area where you can train at high altitude, you may have be tempted to try out a high altitude training mask. These masks restrict air flow and make it challenging for the body to perform during a workout due to respiratory muscle strain. They do not replicate a high altitude training environment. As previously discussed, the low barometric pressure environment, not low oxygen, at high altitudes makes it difficult for oxygen to get to our tissue (creating a condition called hypoxia). Restricting air flow with a mask is a completely different effect on the body and has its own risks, including causing a dangerous accumulation of carbon dioxide in the blood. To really simulate a high altitude atmosphere, some have utilized hyperbaric chambers for sleeping or training.

Live High, Train Low

As the phrase suggests, some have undertaken the approach of actually living at high altitudes and then training at low altitudes. “Living high” allows an athlete to gain the benefits of increased red blood cell production while undertaking normal activities that require less exertion, and “training low” enables the athlete to actually train harder than he or she would be able to at high altitudes. Some argue that the benefits of this type of training are so marginal that it is only worth it if you are an elite athlete, and others argue that endurance is improved significantly.

Reduce Stress and Anxiety

Chronic stress and anxiety can have a negative effect on your entire body, including your lungs. While stress is a normal part of life, external societal pressures make daily stress and anxiety almost a norm. Unless we take actions to manage our physical and mental health, we can get caught in a dangerous cycle of feeling stress, having health problems related to stress, and then feeling stressed about those health problems. Specifically, stress can exacerbate asthma and lung diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, and chronic bronchitis. One of the best ways maintain your physical and mental health is to exercise. So do whatever it takes to get your body moving and clear you mind. If running isn’t working for you for a period, try cross-training. Go on a bike ride. Place some soccer. Join an adult volleyball league. Any exercise is better than letting stress build up inside your body.

Conclusion

Breathing is something we take for granted but can actively work on to improve our running fitness. By incorporating regular breathing exercises like the ones we’ve described, employing training regimens that can help to build endurance gradually, refining advanced running techniques that can take you to the next level, and being mindful of daily activities that can help you to reduce stress and avoid unhealthy air quality, we hope that you are well equipped to improve your lung capacity and maintain overall lung health.

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photo credit: University of Liverpool Faculty of Health & Life Sciences photostream (https://www.flickr.com/photos/liverpoolhls/)Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)