Regulate your breath, control your body.
Your breathing is vital to optimising both your physical and mental performance. But too often, inefficient mechanics and inadequate breathing capacity compromise our ability to excel in times of pressure, stress, or intense physical exertion.
Our performance breathing training centres around the 3 pillars of breathwork:
MIND
Taking conscious control of breathing to better regulate your physiological and psychological response to stress and pressure. Controlled breathing calms the mind and enables us to execute under pressure.
MECHANICS
Learning to breathe more efficiently with better access to the primary muscle of breathing: the diaphragm. By strengthening the respiratory muscles, we increase power, endurance, strength, and core stability.
PHYSIOLOGY
Increasing your tolerance to high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and low levels of oxygen (O2). Oxygen Advantage training is all about improving oxygen uptake by utilising specific breath-holding techniques to simulate high-altitude training. Having a higher aerobic (with oxygen) and anaerobic (without oxygen) capacity enables us to do more with less; to exercise faster and further with each breath.
Functional Breathing Training: Mechanics
Improves blood circulation and oxygen delivery to the cells.
Reduces onset and endurance of breathlessness.
Reduces energy use associated with breathing.
Maximises vagal tone (stimulating the vagus nerve, triggering the body's relaxation response or parasympathetic nervous system).
Maintains parasympathetic–sympathetic balance (the balance between a state of relaxation and arousal).
Increases heart rate variability (HRV - the measure of the variation between each heartbeat. A high HRV is desirable and indicates greater resilience to stress).
Improves sleep, focus, concentration, and overall calmness.
Improves posture and spinal stabilisation.
Improves functional movement to reduce the risk of injury.
Simulation of High-altitude Training (Oxygen Advantage Programme)
Improves aerobic capacity by improving oxygen uptake.
Improves anaerobic capacity by forcing the body into the same anaerobic state experienced during short periods of intense exercise, but without the risk of injury or need for recovery.
Increases peak oxygen uptake (VO2 max) and running economy.
Increases maximum tolerance to breathlessness.
Improves respiratory muscle strength.
Helps maintain fitness during rest or injury.
Reduces ventilatory response to hypercapnia (high CO2) and hypoxia (low O2).
