A Quick Breathing Test

We’ll do a breathing drill with a full body rotation as a range of motion assessment.  Feel free to substitute other assessments if you wish. 

We are really testing 3 things here.  Don’t bother moving your feet in between. It should take about 30 seconds if you are familiar with the assessment.  We’ll test:

  • A normal breath
  • A deep inhale
  • A full exhale

NOTE:  If you have low back pain when you rotate your body, either pick another assessment or another experiment.

Initial Position

  • Find a spot on the floor that you can return to repeatedly and use tape, a floor board, a carpet stain, etc. to make sure you can return to the same spot and orientation for every assessment.
  • Stand tall with your feet together with shoes or feet touching.
  • Put your hands out in front of you, index fingers extended away from you, thumbs up and your remaining fingers interlaced.
  • Your elbows should be locked.  It should feel like you are pointing a gun at something in front of you with the space between the tops of your thumbs as the site.

Warm-up and Baseline Assessment

  • Without moving your feet (no shifting or lifting) rotate your full body to the side of your choice.
  • The relationship of your head, hands and shoulders should not change as you move – i.e., you should keep sighting over your thumbs and your elbows should not bend.
  • Move at moderate speed with minimal tension, until you reach a point where you can hold the position for at least 2 seconds.
  • Note where you are pointing – perhaps a landmark on the wall or in the distance.
  • Do 2-3 more rotations until you are consistently pointing to the same spot each time.
  • The spot where you are pointing is your assessment result.
     
  • Note: At this point, we’ve eliminated any assessment variation due to warm-up.
 

Perform and Assess Your Breathing

  • Inhale normally
  • Exhale normally.
  • Reassess (see below). Note the result.
  • Inhale as deeply as you can
  • Exhale normally
  • Reassess. Note the result.
  • Wait 10 seconds
  • Reassess. Note the result.
  • Exhale deeply
  • Reassess. Note the result.
  • Done

Reassessment

Repeat the Point and Shoot Assessment
  • Rotate to the same side as your prior assessments.
  • Note where you are pointing relative to your baseline assessment.
  • Enter your result on the form below and submit.
    • Rotate more = Better
    • Rotate less = Worse
    • No change = Same
    • Significantly more =  Much better
    • Significantly less =  Much worse 
 

Because everyone is different, it’s impossible for anyone to predict your results.  However, we suspect that there was little change with your normal breath and some changes, better and/or worse on the deeper inhale and exhale.

If you saw no change with a normal breath, it’s because that movement didn’t reach a level of importance to your brain

What we do expect is that you saw a number of changes in your range of motion from various breathing activities.  The changes in breathing were evaluated by your brain and reflected in a change movement.  If your range of motion decreased with any of the breathing, it may be holding back your running performance.  Our Respiration training could be the answer you are looking for.