If you are trying to lose weight by exercising on your stationary bike, one thing you may have not given much thought to is how you are breathing while you exercise. Believe it or not, this can have a great impact on how much fat and calories you are able to burn.

Many people, when they do aerobic exercise, either breathe through their mouths the entire time or do so when they start getting out of breath. This is not a good idea, and here is why.

Whether you are doing aerobic exercises or not, it is best, if possible, to inhale and exhale through your nose. Or, if you need to have a longer exhalation than is possible through your nose, you can exhale through pursed lips, as though you were blowing gently on something.

Why is it so important to inhale through our nose? There are several reasons for this-when we inhale through our nose, the hairs that line our nostrils filter out particles of dust and dirt that can be injurious to our lungs.

If too many particles accumulate on the membranes of the nose, we automatically secret mucus to trap them or sneeze to expel them. The mucous membranes of our septum, which divides the nose into two cavities, further prepare the air for our lungs by warming and humidifying it.

Over time, this filtering and humidification process helps protect our lungs from the damage that would otherwise occur. Another very important reason for breathing through the nose has to do with maintaining the correct balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in our blood.

When we breathe through our mouth we usually inhale and exhale air quickly in large volumes. This often leads to a kind of hyperventilation.

It is important to recognize that it is the amount of carbon dioxide in our blood that generally regulates our breathing. Research has shown that if we release carbon dioxide too quickly, the arteries and vessels carrying blood to our cells constrict and the oxygen in our blood is unable to reach the cells in sufficient quantity.

The lack of sufficient oxygen going to the cells of the brain can turn on our sympathetic nervous system, our “fight or flight” response, and make us tense, anxious, Brand Levitra irritable, and depressed. There are some researchers who believe that mouth breathing and the associated hyperventilation that it brings about can result in asthma, high blood pressure, heart disease, and many other medical problems.

If you are working out to lose weight, don’t let yourself become “breathless” at any point during your workout. When you become breathless, you undermine your breathing coordination, burn sugar instead of fat for fuel, become tight and tense, which can promote injury, and, in general, undermine your endurance and stamina.

The simplest way to know whether you are exercising too intensely and becoming breathless is to try to speak several sentences out loud while you’re working out. If you can’t do it without gasping for breath, then your workout is no longer aerobic–it is, or is about to become anaerobic, which means that it is proceeding without oxygen and you are no longer burning fat for fuel.

A simple way to ensure that you are working out at a level that will not make you breathless is to inhale and exhale only through your nose. If you try this you will quickly discover, especially at the beginning, that you will have to work at a slower or less-intense rate during your workout.

Gradually, however, your breathing coordination and blood chemistry will improve and you will be able to do more and progress more rapidly, eventually going well beyond your previous limits. When you become breathless, the diaphragm hardly moves at all and one tries to breathe by raising one’s shoulders, which takes weight off the top of the lungs and stimulates shallow breathing, and using one’s chest muscles, which is a very inefficient way to breathe, since the diaphragm is the main breathing muscle.

As you can see, the way you breathe while working out is incredibly important, though few people actually understand this, or pay attention to their habits. Work on allowing yourself plenty of oxygen through your nose while you are working out on your stationary bike, and you may find that the quality of your workout and weight loss will increase quickly.

Author Bio: Tom Selwick is a personal trainer and author of numerous articles relating to physical training and exercise bikes. He has been helping others find a greater fitness level since the 80’s.

Contact Info:
Tom Selwick
TomSelwick09@gmail.com
http://www.freemotionfitness.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Category_-1_10001_10002_10503_Y

Category: Fitness/Equipment
Keywords: exercise bikes