In the Media
2006-03-06, The Edmonton Journal
New Year, New You: Week 7
Chris Zdeb; journal staff writer, Edmonton
“Breathe out! Breathe out!”
Bobbi Robbins used to think trainer Alexandra Senkow was just reminding her not to hold her breath during an exercise. She’s since found out that proper breathing is important when you work out. It allows you to take exercise to the next level and makes full use of the core muscles you’ve spent so much time building up.
Most people take short, shallow breaths using a very small percentage of their potential lung capacity whether they’re exerting themselves or not, says Senkow, fitness director at Defining Eve. This is partly the result of improper posture. When people start doing cardiovascular exercises for the first time, it’s not uncommon for their throats to feel a little hoarse or raspy afterwards. That’s the result of taking faster and deeper breaths in and out than they’re used to, she says.
You have to retrain your breathing, to take deeper breaths and to exhale during physical exertion, something the body automatically does when it’s under stress. When people try to calm themselves, they breathe deeply.
“It’s the natural way to get more oxygenated blood into the blood stream to help the heart rate slow down,” Senkow says.
Robbins notes that she breathes deepening to bring her heart rate down faster after working at a high level of exertion.
When you breathe in and hold your breath during exertion, which people have a natural tendency to do when coughing, straining during childbirth or when power lifting, they induce what’s called the Valsalva maneuver, filling their diaphragm or body cavity with air, Senkow says.
“It creates a false sense of stability which prevents them from using the real stabilizing muscles surrounding the spine. What we want to encourage is to exhale as you exert yourself, so that you’re really using the core muscles as you’re doing the pushing at the end of an exercise,” Senkow says. “Otherwise you take away from the opportunity for your core muscles to work.”
It was Robbins’s first week of interval training and your cardiovascular system at a high intensity so that it functions more effectively on a day-to-day basis,” Senkow explains.
Robbins was more than up to the challenge of her first Saturday spin class which included 45 minutes of intervals on the bike.
Starting weight: 199 pounds. Week 7: 193 pounds.
Bobbi Robbins won 12 weeks of personal training with Alexandra Senkow, fitness director at Defining Eve personal fitness studio, in The Journal’s New Year, New You contest.
