Thoughts on improving lung strength/airway tightness from running

[emeadow]

(sorry for the post length, wanted to give full background)

So, I started trying to work on my cardio full force a couple months ago, kicked it off with a 30 day running challenge (using a treadmill).

My history being, I have never had great cardio, rare occasions of using a machine to workout was about it. I have always been active, but outside of short burst cardio, really never did anything long distance or very intense (nor had the ability to).

I am in decent shape, age 34, eat well, and while my exercise in the past has been hit or miss, I have been gradually increasing that the last couple years, especially the last 6 months.

My 30 day running challenge went 'okay', gradually increasing my time each day, but I was surprised at how little distance I accomplished. My physical endurance is fine in a run, its my lungs that just won't go.

Currently I am continuing to increase my distances, concentrating on my technique, and just trying to improve my lung capacity over time, but it seems like progress is super slow.

Twice now I have had an 'attack' of sorts, where when I start running on a trail near our house (it is steep), within 1-2 minutes my airway feels constricted (upper parts of my chest). Breathing becomes hard, very painful, congested, and the first time I thought I was going to get sick. I also get a background taste of iron.

On the treadmill at home, I have had feelings of my airway tightening a bit, but concentrating on my breathing I can usually keep moving forward and it does not get worse. The two times I had 'attacks', I slowed to a walk, and concentrated on expanding my chest deeply. I was able to finish my hike, but have spent both evenings afterwards feeling congested and my chest is sore.

Research would say maybe I am dealing with exercise induced asthma, although unlike the symptoms they have listed, this starts for me within a minute of beginning the run. The first time, I blamed it on starting too fast on too big of a hill. The second time (last night), I realize this might be something I need to pay more attention to and likely my other mild struggles might be related.

The only real discussions I have found on natural treatments for exercise induced asthma is just gradually increasing your lung strength, or switching to things like swimming. I have not seen my doctor yet.

Any thoughts that this might be something other then asthma? Any recommended exercises to help increase my lung strength? I already do a lot of deep breathing with yoga and my meditations. I still struggle to get good deep diaphragm breaths during my runs without stopping my run, need to improve that.

Thanks for any advice or experience....

[StacyT]

I totally recommend seeing a chiropractor. You wouldn't think this would help open up your lung capacity, but it helped with mine tremendously.

I don't know exactly how it works but apparently when your spine is not in proper alignment, your vertebrae can block nerve impulses to specific organs and cause them to operate at sub-optimal levels.

This is from my personal experience, I'm not a doctor. Just make sure you are going to a reputable chiropractor.

[funchy]

Go see your doctor. It sounds quite a bit like asthma. A pulmonary function test (where you're breathing at different rates into a monitoring machine) will tell you ALOT about what is going on with your lungs.

Once they know what the problem is, then you can know the best treatment path. I came up abnornal on my pulmonary function test because I was retaining too much air on the exhale, so not enough new air came in -- I couldn't figure out why I always felt winded when I exercised. Some simple exercises helped me re-learn how to use my breathing muscles. People don't realize it's not just your diaphragm which helps you breathe. When your respiratory rate is up, you're using internal & internal inter-costal muscles (between-rib muscle), serratus anterior, and maybe some help from sternocleidomastiod and your pectoralis minors. The exercises are easy and something you can do at home.

It could out you do have asthma, and in that case your best choice is a bronchiodialator (medication). There are other problems that can also cause shortness of breath in exercise, so go see your doctor.

[Angela]

I'll tell you something that helped me in that area recently.

A few weeks ago, I went through TIME Techniques to release old, stored-up negative emotion. When we got to sadness, I realized I had been carrying around some old sadness that felt like a big, wet rabbit in my lungs, and it had been there for so long that I hardly noticed it -- it was just "how things are." I wasn't thinking of myself as being sad, and in fact, when the sadness released, I didn't even know consciously what the sadness was. I hadn't even realized consciously that it was there. Weird, huh?

And as I drove home, I noticed all of a sudden that the big wet rabbit was gone, and in its place was what felt like about 30% more lung capacity. I started breathing some nice, long, slow deep breaths, and I could feel extra vitality expanding throughout my body. My lungs felt a bit sore, like muscles after a workout, and my feeling was that that lower part of my lungs had been going unused and unexercised for some time, and it was sort of a healing soreness. The soreness went away by the next morning, and the long, slow deep breathing continues. I'm a belly breather now.

Makes a big difference in easy AND strenuous exercise, as you can imagine.

Letting go of old, stored-up negative emotions can only be good for your body.

[StacyT]

Angela - That is wonderful. I'm glad you got rid of the wet rabbit, it sounds very unpleasant!

[Angela]

Originally Posted by StacyT

Angela - That is wonderful. I'm glad you got rid of the wet rabbit, it sounds very unpleasant!

Thanks! It's funny lately, how I've been creating these funny visuals for emotions -- it's kind of like I'm moving more and more freely into and out of dream state, even when I'm awake!

[wayne60618]

This sounds very much like exercise induced asthma. However, exercises to increase your lung capacity will NOT work. The problem is you have inflamation in your airways that restrict your breathing. Imagine you have a straw and are trying to suck water up the straw. You will only get as much water as the straw has capacity for. A garden hose has more capacity, so you could suck more water through it. You breathing is limited by your airways.

If it's asthma your doctor will give you some things to help, the problem is easily solved and should not restrict your activities.

[Dreamline]

Just get the inhaler and see how you feel. Then you will know.

Jennifer