Hiking at Altitude: Abdominal Breathing

​Used by yogis for centuries, abdominal breathing is an incredibly useful tool for Altitude Trekking. Not only can it help improve your performance on the mountain, but it can reduce stress and increase comfort while trekking. It is a skill that all trekkers should learn, practice and master.

​What is Abdominal breathing

​Abdominal breathing is a deep breathing technique that helps strengthen your diaphragm, which is an important muscle that helps you breathe. This breathing technique is also known as diaphragmatic breathing and belly breathing 

It is commonly recommended to aid people with conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or anxiety and well as a relaxation technique for many athletes. 

​the benefits of Abdominal breathing for Hikers 

​Improve Blood Oxygenation
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When you are at altitude, your blood oxygen saturation levels will drop. This is a natural response to the low oxygen environment. However if these levels drop too much, you will begin to experience light headedness, dizziness and headaches. And if it keeps on dropping, then you will be in genuine danger of some more serious types of altitude sickness.

Abdominal breathing is an effective technique to bring your blood oxygen saturation levels back up. By concentrating on the deep, focused breathing in this technique - the body is able to more efficiently exchange carbon dioxide and oxygen, than if you were 'chest breathing'.

Anecdotally, many trekkers have reported the success of using this breathing when experiencing shortness at breath or dizziness at altitude.

Reduce Stress Levels

Our autonomic nervous system is the part of the nervous system that supplies the internal organs.
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It has two main divisions:

• The Sympathetic Nervous System: commonly known as the 'fight or flight response'. At a primal level this response is to get the body to deal with a threat. Adrenaline and cortisol is released through the body, heart rate is increased and emotions are shut down. While this is good if we are trying to fight of a sabre tooth tiger, unfortunately in our modern life this becomes an all too regular thing. And if this response is constantly active it can cause problems such as: headaches, anxiety, depression and weight gain.
  
  
• The Parasympathetic nervous system:  is commonly known as the 'rest and digest' response. This allows the body to slow down the heart rate, conserve energy and digest food. This is beneficial as it helps reduce anxiety, lower blood pressure and relieve general stress. 

Abdominal breathing is an effective technique to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. As with any endurance activity, being too 'pumped up' or stressed will cause you to fatigue quickly. So by lowering our stress response, we can conserve energy for when we really need it.

Improves Digestion

It is said that by activating the diaphragm during abdominal breathing, you will can create a gentle 'massaging' action which is felt by internal organs like the intestines and stomach. This is said to aid digestion, reduce abdominal pain and bloating.

Whether or not this is true is up for debate, but there is not denying that by activating our 'rest and digest response' allows your food to be digested properly.

This is very important for trekkers, as the last thing you want in stomach problems caused by hard to digest, local foods!

Relieve Tension In Neck And Shoulders

A tight neck and shoulders comes hand in hand with stress. This is partly caused by the mechanics of 'chest breathing' in which many of the muscles in the upper body will be used for respiration. 

Abdominal breathing will allow the diaphragm to take over respiration (as it is designed to) and automatically relieve tension in these muscles. And added bonus, is that it is VERY difficult to do this breathing with poor posture. So as a consequence, posture will naturally be improved.

This is doubly important for trekkers as heavy packs and long days looking at your feet, can commonly cause some abysmal posture as well as sore necks and backs. 

Improves Attention Span

Abdominal breathing has been shown to improve attention span. 

For trekkers, this is important as inattention is a big contributor to the common slips, trips and falls which are associated with the undulating and uneven terrain of the trail.

How to do abdominal Breathing

The process for abdominal breathing is very simple:
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1. Lie on your back 
2. Put one hand on your chest and the other hand on your belly
3. Breathe in slowly through your nose, trying to feel the belly expand. As you do this you want to keep the chest as still as possible
4. Breathe out through the mouth and feel the belly return to normal
5. Repeat
   
   

At first this might feel a bit strange and require a lot of concentration. But with consistency, practice and progression it can become just a natural way of breathing. 

​Training Abdominal Breathing

Like any skill, to truly master and gain the benefits of abdominal breathing, it needs to be trained!

And like any type of training, consistency and progression is key.

Here is a great 6 Stage Progression to work through:

Progression #1: Lying on your back

(See directions above)

Do this in between sets at the gym, at the end of a workout or in bed just before you go to sleep.

Progression #2: Standing

Standing on two feet, have one hand on your chest and one hand on belly. Breathe through the nose and try to feel the belly rise (keeping the chest as still as possible).

Do this in between sets at the gym, at the end of a workout or  just before you go to bed.

Progression #3: Walking

At a moderate walking pace, put your focus into breathing through your nose into your belly. 

Do this while walking on the treadmill, around the neighbourhood or while hiking.

Progression #4: Walking (hands above head)

This adds a whole extra challenge. Put your hands above your head while walking and try to maintain abdominal breathing.
  
Because your arms will get tired, do this 1 minute on/ 1 minute off. Practice this while on the treadmill, walking around the neighbourhood or while hiking.

Progression #5: Loaded pack walking or jogging

At this level, you can start incorporating the breathing into some higher intensity activities such as loaded pack carries or jogging. Both of these options are going be quite a bit more challenging to maintain the breathing, so you will need to pay attention!

Progression #6: Rest Periods Of Intervals

This is tough. Get yourself on the treadmill, on the bike or rower. Do a quick effort for 30 seconds. Rest for 1 minute and practice the breathing. This will be very tough at first, but once you master this you will be ready for anything the trail will throw at you!
  

Each of these stages get progressively more difficult and really does take some concentration and focus to master. But the more you practice it, the easier and more natural it will feel while on the mountain (when you need it most!)

Abdominal breathing can be a powerful tool for altitude trekkers. It can help improve blood oxygenation, reduce stress and relieve tension in the upper body. If trained and practiced consistently, it can make some significant changes to a hikers comfort and performance on the trail. ​

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