Exercise and Oxygen: The Importance of Breathing

During exercise, the muscles' oxygen demand exceeds the heart's capacity. Because the heart cannot control the excess oxygen, it must burn energy with little or no oxygen – anaerobic combustion. This results in lactic acid buildup, leading to muscle soreness and fatigue. To neutralize the lactic acid, the body produces more carbon dioxide. To increase oxygen levels and expedite carbon dioxide elimination, the brain prompts an increased breathing rate. During strenuous exercise, the body needs more air than can enter through the nose, so it breathes forcefully through the mouth.

In either case, the muscles of the diaphragm and ribs constantly move to draw air into the chest cavity, allowing it to expand into the lungs. Inside the lungs are tiny, expandable air bubbles called alveoli. The alveoli process the air entering the lungs, facilitating gas exchange. Oxygen inhaled from the air permeates into the red blood cells, gradually saturating the hemoglobin within them. Simultaneously, the blood, having received oxygen, immediately expels carbon dioxide through capillary walls into the alveoli.

The oxygen that enters the bloodstream continues its journey, a process that, while fascinating, isn't particularly important to understand as it's largely irrelevant to any "optimize your metabolism" exercise program. If you're interested in this topic, the author recommends reading relevant popular science books. These books will certainly provide a more detailed explanation than this book.

The nutrient that enables human muscles to move is a chemical substance produced by the body called adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ATP is the basic energy source that drives muscle contraction.

However, the body's reserve of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is only enough for about 10 seconds of exercise. Once the body's ATP reserves are depleted, it must immediately regenerate ATP. Regenerating ATP is relatively easy for the body, but it requires oxygen. Therefore, whenever a person engages in the high-intensity exercise activities described earlier in this book, the body needs a large amount of oxygen. This is precisely why the author dedicates an entire chapter to explaining how to more effectively increase oxygen intake.

To accelerate metabolism, the human body requires more oxygen than usual. This increased oxygen demand is not only to produce more adenosine triphosphate (ATP), but also to eliminate waste products generated during ATP production.

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is produced in a very high proportion from the large amounts of sugar (glycogen) stored in the body's muscles. However, during the production of ATP, a byproduct called lactic acid is generated. The body must eliminate the lactic acid produced; otherwise, the muscles will become very weak, forcing you to end your exercise prematurely.

If you want to fully boost your metabolism, then your oxygen delivery system is crucial, because during any kind of exercise, the oxygen delivery system is the main source of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and the amount of ATP it provides to the body is enough to keep you exercising for more than 3 minutes.

As you will soon understand, to truly enhance metabolism, several key components must be effectively combined. It is entirely possible to strengthen muscles, making them more toned and healthier, through weightlifting and aerobic exercise. However, any good exercise regimen requires a significant amount of oxygen to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP) for the body to use during exercise.

Therefore, let's take immediate action to get as much oxygen as possible so that we can further change our metabolism and truly burn the fat stored in our bodies.

Next, we will begin to discuss our breathing process. Although this issue involves some scientific knowledge, it contains information that you must know.

We have already learned about the breathing method described earlier, which involves inhaling air into the internal organs. Using this method, a person must expand their chest cavity with each breath. This is why the chest cavity bears an extremely heavy workload for breathing. This heavy and arduous work can also cause high blood pressure, rapid heart rate, and weakened breathing, and further lead to various illnesses such as headaches, heart disease, and hot flashes.

However, more seriously, this breathing method may be extremely inefficient, failing to effectively deliver oxygen into the body. Because it doesn't bring sufficient air to the lower parts of the lungs, it cannot effectively activate metabolism. The lungs are where blood flow is highest, and only oxygen-rich blood can fully activate the metabolic system. The more blood in the body comes into contact with oxygen, the greater the amount of oxygen delivered to all parts of the body.

The following method can help you quickly check if your breathing is correct: Lie flat on your back and place a book under your stomach. Now start inhaling, and what happens to the book?

Okay, let me tell you, if you breathe in correctly, the book will rise. The author found that most new customers at his gym had this problem: their chests expanded too little when they breathed, and the book under their stomachs not only didn't rise, but actually fell. If they were asked to take a few deep breaths, the book would fall even more noticeably.

If you only expand your chest cavity when you breathe, it means your diaphragm is rising. A rising diaphragm compresses the lungs, limiting their function. However, if you expand both your chest cavity and diaphragm with each breath, your diaphragm should be flat during inhalation, allowing your lungs to expand and receive ample oxygen. This means you are maximizing the activation of your oxygen delivery system, and this enhanced oxygen delivery system may consume more energy.

The best breathing method is diaphragmatic breathing. The key to diaphragmatic breathing is to breathe through your nose, focus your attention, and move your chest and stomach simultaneously-not just your chest, and not just your stomach.

This breathing method allows you to get more oxygen than shallow breathing, so you should do some breathing exercises daily, namely 5-7 diaphragmatic breaths per minute, followed by normal breathing. Obviously, your breathing rate will be slightly higher during these exercises. Diaphragmatic breathing makes your breathing slightly shallower, but increases your breathing rate. Furthermore, most of the air exhaled during diaphragmatic breathing comes out of your mouth, not your nose.

Sometimes, you can try this breathing technique while exercising: Focus on exhaling naturally, without trying to control the process. Then close your mouth and quietly inhale through your nose while silently counting to 4. Next, hold your breath and count to 16, then exhale through your mouth until you reach 8.

In short, you must strive to make your breathing deeper, slower, and calmer, and when you inhale, your chest and abdomen should expand, like a balloon filled with air.