I read a post recently on here where someone mentioned that they were not really seeing a benefit from oxygen, someone else asked if they were breathing properly.

I coach a lot of kids and what I’ve found is that not many of them have ever been shown how to get the most out of the lung capacity they got, most only use about 50% of the lung capacity available to them. I’m guessing most adults are the same.

I’ve basically nicked this from pilates but try this out (when your not in a ch moment)

Lie on your back with your eyes closed and arms stretched out at 90 degrees; make sure you got a long neck ie not scrunched up because of a pillow. Just take a moment to clear the brain and focus on your breathing.

Try breathing in slowly through the nose, taking 5 seconds to inhale, hold for a second and then taking another 5 seconds to exhale, repeat several times. Try to avoid letting your mind wander.

Next repeat the process but this time inhale and exhale through the mouth.

Once you done that you can try inhale through nose, exhale through mouth and visa versa. But remember you are concentrating on the breathing.

So we are now focussed on what is going in and out of our lungs – when was the last time you thought about that!

Now we will focus on how much is going into the lungs. Place one hand palm down on the stomach and one hand, again, palm down on your chest and repeat which ever inhale / exhale pattern was most comfortable.

One of your hands should be rising and falling with each intake / exhale. If your lower hand is rising and falling alter your intake so that your upper hand is rising and falling and visa versa. Spend a few moments switching between the two so that you can get a handle on how to control which part of the lungs you decide to use.

Finally, combine the two. When you inhale start by filling your lower abdomen, when full start filling the upper abdomen. When you exhale start by emptying the upper abdomen first. All of this should be done in a single consistent flow for both inhale and exhale. For a lot of people this will be the first proper lung full of air in years.

Be careful when you get up, you could feel a bit light headed!!

When you next use the oxygen, make sure that you got the long neck and that your using all of you lung capacity and that your breathing in measured and controlled, this way you will get max benefit from evey litre of 02 that comes out the bottle.

Hi Lance,

yeah about diaphram, was keeping it simple, I put that together for coaching kids, was trying to make them aware that breathing isnt just a reflex re-action and that you can control it and improve efficiancy and avoid or delay any lactic build up