Toolbox: why breathing through your mouth is bad for you

The concept behind the Toolbox shows us that there are many ways to be better on the bike without having to push more watts. How we breathe is one of those.

Many of us ride our bike because we love the freedom and the rush of air. But we also ride our bike for health reasons. That motivation can spill over into other parts of our lives. If we are more generally healthy, we will be better riders.

As discussed in this podcast, how we breathe is important. You want to breathe predomiantly through your nose.

You might not breathe through your nose all the time on the bike. It is possible at lower intensities though, up through the top of tempo and perhaps with lots of practice into threshold efforts. You might be surprised to feel how nose breathing can actually lower your perceived exertion for an effort!

This is another one of those Toolbox concepts that you can layer onto your rides and work on almost all the time. The more layers, the more interesting your rides will be - even endurance ones :)

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art is James Nestors' book. An amazing read.