Understanding the Role of O2 and CO2 in the Body

From the moment we are born until the day we die there is one constant in life, we must breathe. Despite the importance of breathing, not many athletes pay any attention to it; in fact in my experience most athletes only pay attention to their breathing when they’re meditating or doing activities that require a focus on their breathing such as swimming or yoga. As athletes and coaches we place a massive emphasis on training and nutrition, we track things like volume/tonnage, intensity, frequency, macronutrients, micronutrients, etc. Of course these things are important, and as athletes progress to higher levels of their sport every single variable counts even more; but I would argue that tracking these details while ignoring your breathing is putting the cart before the horse. Just because breathing happens unconsciously doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be paying attention to how much we’re breathing (breathing volume) and how often we’re breathing (breathing rate). An athlete breathing program will improve the way you breathe during rest and exercise will have positive repercussions on your general health as well as your athletic performance, reducing the risk of injury and enabling you to perform beyond your previous limits.

We inhale O2 and exhale CO2; however this does not mean that CO2 is a waste gas; it is the key variable that allows the release of O2 from the red blood cells to be metabolized by body. This is called “The Bohr Effect”. As odd as it may seem, it’s not the O2 that exerts the primary influence on your breathing efficiency, it’s CO2. Receptors in your brain monitor CO2 concentrations in your blood (as well as your blood pH) and when levels of CO2 increase above a certain amount these receptors stimulate breathing to clear the excess gas. In other words the primary stimulus to breathe is to eliminate excess CO2 from the body. How we breathe determines the level of CO2 in our blood. When we breathe light, we have a sufficient amount of CO2 and our breathing is quiet, controlled and rhythmic. If we are over breathing our breathing is heavy, more intense, and erratic. When we over breathe we exhale too much CO2, leaving our bodies starved for oxygen. Proper breathing leads to increased CO2 inside us which leads to more O2 delivered to the muscles and organs, including the heart and brain, thus heightening our physical capacity.