Why is Breathing So Important when Doing Abs Exercises?

You might often have heard your coach or maybe the exercise trainer on one of those pilates or other aerobics videos tell you to breathe during your work out. But is it so important for you ro exhale when you are working out, and what is so special about exhaling when you are doing abdominal work outs? Read on to find out more about this fascinating topic that most people have heard of, but never knew the reasons behind it.

First, a brief overview of how breathing works in a human body and why it is so important. Humans take in air through the nose or mouth and it follows the various tunnels down into the body from there. During the air’s travel through your body it gets filtered by mucus to stop any infections or dangerous substances from entering. It also humidifies the air, to make sure that it has all of the required elements and components needed during respiration. Next your body warms up the air before it gets to your lungs. This is a vital step and anyone who has exercised outside in the winter can attest to the fact that it hurts your lungs and chest to breathe cold air.

Next the air makes its way to your lungs through the bronchioles, smaller air passage ways. Once inside your lungs this air is used to send oxygen through to the blood, which then gets distributed throughout the rest of your body through blood vessels. The acquiring of oxygen and this distribution is extremely important, since lack of blood and oxygen to the brain for a very short period of time will cause someone to faint and in the longer run will cause brain damage and possible death.

If you are not concentrating on your breathing, and you’re not consciously controlling it, then why do you keep breating? You keep breathing unconsciously because of the way the lungs are made. If the pressure of air in your lungs is less than that of the air outside your body, then you will breathe in more air to make the pressures equal. Vise versa if your lungs of full of air, and the pressure is higher than the pressure outside of your body, then you will expire and breathe the air out. There are many muscles around the lungs that change the pressure inside your lungs.

These muscles are crucial to our continued normal breathing. One of these important muscles is called the diaphragm and it is basically a flat muscle that is right below your lungs. Think of it as a thin table that holds your lungs up. When you breathe out it contracts to move your lungs up, thus causing your lungs to be squished or contracted and lowering the pressure in your lungs. When you inhale this diaphragm muscles moves down and allows your lungs to get bigger and fill up with more air.

Here is the good part: when you exhale you work your abdominal muscles, but working your diaphragm muscle. That’s the reason that exercise gurus and people who have flat tummies and train others are always telling you to exhale during your ab work outs. So the next time someone says “Breathe out” or “exhale, exhale, exhale”, listen to them! Maybe Denise Austin is a little bit too peppy for her own good, but at least she knows what she’s talking about and she’ll be able to help you produce results with your abdominal work outs! So next time, exhale!