You've been working out hard, but are unable to make progress beyond a certain point. You hammer your muscles hard during an exercise, giving it EVERYTHING you've got, but you are still unable to move beyond a certain point. And even when you do make good progress, you aren't feeling as great as you should be. Assuming all else to be fine (sensible training, no overtraining, enough rest etc) - what is that one missing link that is holding you back from getting as good of a workout as you should be?

Hint: It involves someting you do naturally, something you do without even thinking about. You've been doing it since the day you were born, yet somehow you aren't doing it correctly NOW. It's something simple, something elementary, but amazingly, most of us pay virtually no attention to it.

And that something is DEEP BREATHING, and CONCENTRATING ON YOUR BREATH. 

Let me give you an example from today's workout. I did a set of sprints at medium velocity (still not fully healed from my injury a couple of weeks ago, but I'm getting there), followed by pullups and some other exercises which I'll talk about later. Nothing too tough, nothing that serious - in fact I generally do my sprints at a far higher intensity when I'm fully fit - but yet, I'm feeling like a gazillion bucks right now. And the key to this is my BREATHING, and my focus on the same during my workouts.

I focused extra hard on breathing correctly on EACH repetition of the pull-ups. Ditto for my pushups, and super ditto for the sprints - though I did not do them at full speed, I was still working up a pretty decent sweat during the routine, and the reason was correct breathing technique, and actually FOCUSING on how I breathe while exercising.

And the benefits of deep breathing go far, far beyond simply improving your routine/results. You purify and cleanse your lungs while breathing correctly, you bring plenty of benefit to ALL your internal organs, and most of all, it's an INSTANT shot of "energy" that virtually nothing else can give you. I should know - I'm still buzzing after a moderately hard workout, and it's almost an hour after completing my routine!

Think about how YOU would benefit from breathing correctly, and focusing on your breathing during your routine. More importantly, how GOOD would you feel for the rest of the day, and how much more could you get done?

The answer is clear enough. I devote an entire chapter to deep breathing in Fast and Furious Fitness - be sure and check it out if you are interested.

All for now. If you are training today, make it one to remember!

Best regards,

Rahul

PS: We will soon have a link to our facebook site up on the blog (and website) up as well. For now, you can "like" the posts by clicking on the link beneath a blog post. For example, THIS one. 

PS#2: Have an enjoyable and safe weekend!

Started off in fine fettle with my sprints this morning. Did a 5 minute general warm up, then eased into the first sprint, and cranked things up from there. I finished that part of my workout in about 20 minutes, most of which was deep breathing and "recovering" from the sprint. I talk about sprints in great details in my "Fast and Furious Fitness" book, but for now, let's talk about deep breathing.

As you can well  imagine, a set of hard sprints gets the heart pumping, and there are few (if any) exercises that require more deep breathing than sprints do. My own routine went like this: sprint, breathe in and  out DEEPLY while recovering, and then back again. And getting the fresh air into my system felt GREAT - sort of like I had a "natural" drug pumped into my system, with only good side effects. By the end of my routine, I felt fantastic mentally and physically - sort of like I was floating on air - and this was after a set of hard sprints, which are supposed to exhaust you by the end of the workout. And I attribute all this to deep breathing - and with good reason. Breathe deeply, and you get fresh, lifegiving, OXYGEN into your system - which energizes and purifies your entire body. You feel more aware of your surroundings, and are able to perform that much better.

And in my particular case today, being that it's the middle of winter here, it felt that much better getting the cold, crisp air into my lungs and entire system while working up a healthy sweat.That's a "free" tip for you: when exercising outside in cold weather, concentrate even more on deep breathing, rather than trying to protect yourself from the cold (which is what most people end up concentrating upon), and you won't believe the natural high this gives you.

Most people forgot to concentrate on their breathing during their exercises - and this is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. ALWAYS concentrate on your breathing - and once you start doing so, you will be amazed at the benefits you reap from doing so.

Deep breathing is something else that I cover in my book Fast and Furious Fitness, along with a host of other important information that is a must for any serious trainee. Be sure to grab a copy.

Thats all for today. If you are working out today, make sure you breathe deeply while doing it!

Best regards,
Rahul Mookerjee

Hi everyone,

This is the first post on my blog. The posts on this blog will motivate and inspire you to achieve new levels of fitness and confidence, while also providing the occasional laugh. Be on the lookout for new posts daily!

Get fit - FAST!

Rahul