Hello everyone,
I was just wondering if any of you use nose breathing during endurance training, are there any benefits to it?
Thanks !
No.
Some people talk about using being able to breathe your nose still as a way to ensure you’re doing your z2 work easy enough. But this doesn’t work in everyone, as many people have issues with things like deviated septum’s, exercise-induced rhinitis, etc.
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Just breathe, man.
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This is reassuring as one who is often somewhat congested with seasonal allergies!
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We could say “just pedal”, but here we are on trainerroad
I still have issues with high schoolers insisting on breathing through their nose (even in high intensity intervals and in races) because some YouTuber told them to. 
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I think he meant “do not overthink/complicate something simple”
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but all simple things can be optimized, and that’s why we’re here .
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There are performance benefits to learning a proper muscle firing patterns during a pedal stroke. There are performance-based reasons to do cadence drills - high leg speed to be able to accelerate quickly or low cadence to generate high torque for steep ascents. In short, there are reasons to pedal differently.
There is no reason to force yourself to breathe only through your nose. It’s nonsense.
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At some point, optimization meets marginal gains and often lands at the law of diminishing returns. Good old Google provides some easy reading on the topic with mixed impact: “benefits of nose breathing during exercise”
This issue in particular seems of minor impact (if any at all for our needs) so I think it’s a not worthy of greater focus, but as seen above there might be reasons to consider it. I just wouldn’t expect gains in a measurable way.
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If someone has some sort of dysfunction where they aren’t able to get a good amount of air through their nasal passages (the preferred way we are designed to breathe under normal, non-exercise circumstances due to all the filtration provided sinuses, etc.), then learning to breathe through your nose is fine.
That said, doing so when exercising as a means of gaining a performance benefit is probably more detrimental since you’ll unnecessarily restrict airflow to your lungs, and all the downstream problems that would cause.
Some people can probably do endurance rides at the low end of “zone 2” by nose breathing, but others may not for some reasons already pointed out here.
By writing this post, I have already spent more time on this subject than anyone should. Just breathe, and let your body determine what it needs to do. It’s good at it. 
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Hey @Hugoyave!
You might find this episode of the Ask A Cycling Coach podcast interesting. Chad and Amber did a deep dive on the subject of breathing. They weren’t discussing nose breathing specifically, though. I’ll do some digging and get back to you if I find anything that is relevant for us endurance athletes!
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The research is largely in agreement with you, @kurt.braeckel! 
There seems to be a wealth of evidence to suggest that breath work or controlling your breath (eg. nose breathing) has health benefits. By controlling your breath, you are influencing oxygen and carbon dioxide ratios in the body which can have potent effects on alertness and mood state, to name just a couple effects.
Given the role of oxygen and carbon dioxide in exercise physiology and metabolism, it makes sense that breath could indrectly influence performance when pratcied outside of training. With that said, I haven’t found any research that suggests that nose breathing while endurance training exerts any additional performance benefits compared to breathing normally. As, @kurt.braeckel says, in many cases it could be detrimental because it could limit intensity to the degree that you aren’t stimulating the desired physiological adaptations.
If anyone knows of any research suggesting otherwise, I’d love to read it! This could be an interesting podcast discussion…
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Yes my general opinion, which I’ve done some reading/research about but am not at all an expert, is that breath work outside of your regular endurance training, but supportive of your training, can be beneficial. I’ve done some of it. Artificially restricting your breathing during training (by nose breathing or using a breathing device) is probably worthless and might be detrimental. That is, again, my opinion and mine alone. Some far more prominent coaches may disagree with me.
You can train things like improving your ability to expand your rib cage, the endurance and force generation of your primary and secondary breathing muscles, learning HOW to breathe using the proper muscles (thus drawing air into the best areas of your lungs). All that can and in some cases SHOULD be trained, but outside your regular training (IMO).
Also, as mentioned but not clearly, if you have some sort of nasal dysfunction where you need to teach yourself to breathe through your nose, then that’s a different story.
But inside your regular endurance training, just breathe. There are some instances where breath pattern regulation can be helpful, but I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here.
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save it forpost ride yoga & meditation .
There may be some hypothetical benefit, but with individual bodies being so different there are far bigger gains to be had focusing elsewhere. .
At the risk of having some grinding, I have been experimenting lately as a pretty fit, 56 year old lifetime medicated asthmatic. Cross country mtb rider (4-5 days a week)
I recently read the book “Breath, the new science of a lost art” and decided to try some of the things mentioned, mainly around favoring nose. I found the theories of the change in physiology of the modern human head, mouth and nasal passages and how we mouth breath way more than we likely used to…quite interesting. At any rate, as someone who was hospitalized with asthma as a kid and on meds my entire life…and training pretty hard on MTB over the past 4 or 5 years…I am just very interested in the subject. Breathing is a thing I have been pretty fixated on…and I am a data nerd with my biking / sleep etc.
For the past 20 years I have been on steroid based prophylactic meds and never leave home without a rescue inhaler. One or two rides a week I would need a shot of inhaler to keep lungs free. I have always thought of the mouth as just better bandwidth to lungs…and who cares how the air gets in and out. Not so sure its that simple any longer.
In the first week of Aug I started focusing on nose breathing and just increasing my inhale exhale time. Have not been timing anything, following any breathing formula…just nose favored and trying to make the breaths last longer. I have also been mouth taping at night. During hard cross country riding…trying also to favor nose.
To my amazement I have not had a SINGLE puff of any asthma medication since the 19th of Aug. During hard rides if I start to feel a bit chest tight and would normally have reached for a puff…I focus on nose…and have gotten through.
I’m waiting every day for the return of my symptoms but this has been a very good experience for me. My V02 and FTP tend to plateau or drop over summers so I can’t report any performance changes yet…but I find it all very interesting.
Others have said that these concepts are quackery, some of the breathing methods (can’t remember the names etc other than Hoff’s) but I don’t really care. Just my own experience and keeping an open mind. Asthma is a curse for aspiring athletes…and maybe I have just impacted my mind in a way that has helped my asthma but anyone that has seen and heard me with an attack, would not question that I have the physiological condition.
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I try to breathe only through my nose when I think about it. not so much for biking performance but for general health. so really i’m trying to breathe through my nose all day long. I don’t obsess over it but when I notice i’m breathing through my mouth I just gently close my lips.
it’s also a good indicator that i’m in lower zone 2. when I start having to use my mouth i’m creeping into tempo.
in addition to Breathe mentioned above you can check out Oxygen advantage.
both of them have some quick youtube vids / podcasts so you can get the gist of what they believe the benefits are before buying a book.
agreed and anyone who advocates breathing through the nose for general health also agrees. they basically say with exercise breathe through your nose til the intensity is such that you can’t…but don’t restrict air ever.
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After reading the book oxygen advantage, I have given several breathing exercises a go at it. One that builds of C02 tolerance. What I have found without a shadow of doubt is that it makes breathing so much easier. When doing threshold or tempo, even anaerobic zones
. What I mean exactly, is that I no longer have to breathe like a freight train when I am at threshold, my breathing is very calm, to the point I can breathe through my nose easily. Even at anaerobic it is so nice not to gasping for air breathing very calmly.
Really out of curiosity and zero knowledge about it.
But, it seems to me that the nose cavity is way smaller than the mouth, so when the body really needs oxygen, in doses larger than usual (anaerobic state or at least above normal), it will invariably use the easier path - the mouth.
I understand that you can train it, but you will still be restricting the inflow by using the nose, not the mouth.
So, is it beneficial? Where am I missing something?