Thought this could be helpful today. I have been talking a lot about breathing and I’ve shared a few times how our warm-up in our facility is different.
Some may say it’s a bit voodoo.
What we do is called RPR which stands for Reflexive Performance Reset.
With all the stress we encounter on a daily basis it makes it super hard to perform your best in your daily life let alone the gym.
We always start our warm-up with 10 belly breaths.
Now as simple as this task may seem, I watch time and time again people struggle to truly belly breathe.
It may be first thing in the morning you raced out of bed, your mind started going with the list of things you had to get done. (First, step knockout this workout!)
Or they come in after a long day and for the most part, you see people breathe from the chest.
Take note, when you are speaking with someone, are they flying 100 miles a minute, notice their breathing.
So, what do you do when you can’t seem to belly breathe?
Start with what we call Zone 1.
You take your thumb or knuckles and rub 1-inch spots down your sternum, then we call it an upside-down Y, rub along the bottom of your rib cage. Take note of how this is feeling.
Now I am not talking light rubbing, you want to get into the fascia.
Then from your belly button measure about 1.5 to each side and 1.5 down and press in rubbing the psoas.
Lastly, find the ridge on the base of your skull (back of your head) rub starting in the center, use both hands and work your way out. Then find your jaw right below your earlobe and apply pressure rubbing working 1inch spots.
Retest your belly breathing.
During the day when I feel stressed, I do these drills and it helps bring me back centered. I struggle often to breathe and working through zone 1 has helped significantly.
Let me know your thoughts.
Super weird stuff, but the research they are doing on athletes is proofing significantly less soft tissue injuries from adding RPR.
It has been really cool to see how it affects performance in the gym and in people’s lives!
Happy Breathing!
Arin
