feud with the gym teacher

It sounds pretty damn sketchy to me as far as the physiological reasoning, but even then you're talking about a technique for athletes intended to improve an already fit swimmer's cardiovascular system to an even greater level of fitness. Not something you tell an out of breath 4th grader.

Well, I don't know if it works for trained athletes or untrained 4th graders, and that's the point I suspect. It's been a bit controversial in it's natural home (i.e. swimming coaching) so I don't doubt it's even more controversial for running coaching. I had two observations:

1) Why couldn't a school coach be a fitness expert? I mean they could be a useless tool for all I know.... but they could really know their stuff also. Not enough information has been supplied to make a determination at this point. Dan Johns is/was a school coach and he's pretty awesome. This guy is probably no Dan Johns though.....

2) Just because something sounds "weird" doesn't mean it has no merit in coaching athletes......

I've not coached many world class runners, so I'm going to hold off on whether this technique actually works for that demographic or not. I suspect it's one of those things where your coach believes in it, you believe in your coach and it enables you to dig deep and find something extra. In that regard it's probably more psychological than physiological. In this particular case, with this particular 4th grader, it seems to have had no physiological benefits and seems to have had bad psychological effects. Time for coach to go back to his bag of tricks and find something that works for this 4th grade athlete!

When my son was in the 4th grade, he came home telling me he ran the mile in 9:03, missing getting his shirt by 3 seconds. Since he was so close, they let him try again the next day. So I gave him some advice. I told him that he did not need to start off running as fast as he can. I told him to take it easy at the start, keep a steady pace, then kick it on on the last corner of the soccer field his last time around. Pretty sound advice, right?
So he comes home the next day and I asked how it went. His time was 12:58. WHAT? He said, I did exactly what you said! I walked until my last turn of the field then I started running. Sometimes 4th graders hear advice differently that it is actually said. I'm hoping this is the case with your son. Tell him the correct way to deal with it and if it continues, go talk to the teacher. If you are not satisfied, THEN go talk to the principal. You don't have to beat anybody up till you get all the facts. Then if the guy turns out to be as big an idiot as your son says, beat him to a pulp!

So I am not a marathon runner, but I have always been taught that while running, you should aim to breathe in a natural, steady, rhythmic pattern with your footfalls....in through the nose, out through the mouth.

So...

My son came home from school the other day complaining about running in gym class. Mind you, he is not a runner and gets winded pretty quickly, but he tries. He stopped to catch his breath and his gym teacher told him that when he is struggling to breathe while running, he should hold his breath as long as he can and push through it. My son says that he feels like he's going to pass out when he does this but the teacher insists.

We're not talking about track & field or cross country here...we are talking about 4th graders.

Am I right to be upset or is there a benefit to holding your breath while running???

Unless your son misheard (always possible), there is no sound physiological basis for the gym teachers' instructions.

Breathing rates are closely synched with the metabolic demands of activity. If someone is struggling to breathe, it's because the demands of the activity are greater than their fitness ability (exceptions listed below). Trying to stop breathing at that point is absurd and potentially unhealthy--like shutting off the gas line to a car to make it run faster.

Now, there are a couple of instances where excessive shortness of breath might be caused be something other than metabolic demand. One is tension/stress/anxiety, which certainly is not going to be helped by subjecting the child to an unpleasant activity like trying to hold his breath. The other is an asthma-like reaction.

The response to almost all of those possibilities is a more gradual warm up, or to engage in a gradual interval-like program (not high-intensity intervals, but just alternating work and recovery) to build up stamina and gain confidence.

BTW, the whole "breathe in through the nose and out the mouth" thing is misguided as well. As intensity of effort increases, you need to be able to ventilate as much air as possible and restricting that by nose-breathing is like putting a plastic bag over your head.

Using a rhythmic breathing pattern to reduce body tension or dissociate from exercise effort can be a helpful technique, but the actual breathing still has to match the metabolic needs of the effort---and ultimately those needs will override everything else.

Whoa, whoa, whoa here. Exercise physiologists? Asthma testing? Physical violence to the teacher? Guys, we have a kid that isn't used to running, and he got out of breath doing it. This is normal. The teacher gave (poor in my opinion, though the child may have misunderstood as someone else points out) advice. Talk to the teacher, tell him you think the breath holding thing is bad, and help the child by showing him the correct way to improve. If after a legitimate attempt to improve there is still a breathing issue, then start thinking about talking to a doctor. Jumping to asthma at this point is like assuming that every time you have the sniffles you should get a meningitis test.

Nearly everyone gets out of breath when they first start trying to run any distance, this is becasue nearly everyone tries to run too fast. The speed at which you should start distance training is always slower than seems reasonable.

This.

Also, the Presidential Fitness Test is just something that's done every year. Our PE teacher marked down our results, and that was that. If you got an award, cool. If not, no biggie. It's not a standardized test like the ACT. It's just criteria to show which kids are fit and which kids might need some help. I always failed rope climbing.

To those who said, "It's just a gym teacher, not someone with training," there are some gym teachers who studied PhysEd in college. A friend of mine did that program. It was under the education department, like secondary ed, and her major involved lots of sports, how to teach sports, nutrition classes, etc. I thought it was just "let's go play kickball and get our degree" and kind of teased her at first (not meanly, just two friends drinking wine and bantering), and then she showed me her class requirements.

So I am not a marathon runner, but I have always been taught that while running, you should aim to breathe in a natural, steady, rhythmic pattern with your footfalls....in through the nose, out through the mouth.

So...

My son came home from school the other day complaining about running in gym class. Mind you, he is not a runner and gets winded pretty quickly, but he tries. He stopped to catch his breath and his gym teacher told him that when he is struggling to breathe while running, he should hold his breath as long as he can and push through it. My son says that he feels like he's going to pass out when he does this but the teacher insists.

We're not talking about track & field or cross country here...we are talking about 4th graders.

Am I right to be upset or is there a benefit to holding your breath while running???

Unless your son misheard (always possible), there is no sound physiological basis for the gym teachers' instructions.

Breathing rates are closely synched with the metabolic demands of activity. If someone is struggling to breathe, it's because the demands of the activity are greater than their fitness ability (exceptions listed below). Trying to stop breathing at that point is absurd and potentially unhealthy--like shutting off the gas line to a car to make it run faster.

Now, there are a couple of instances where excessive shortness of breath might be caused be something other than metabolic demand. One is tension/stress/anxiety, which certainly is not going to be helped by subjecting the child to an unpleasant activity like trying to hold his breath. The other is an asthma-like reaction.

The response to almost all of those possibilities is a more gradual warm up, or to engage in a gradual interval-like program (not high-intensity intervals, but just alternating work and recovery) to build up stamina and gain confidence.

BTW, the whole "breathe in through the nose and out the mouth" thing is misguided as well. As intensity of effort increases, you need to be able to ventilate as much air as possible and restricting that by nose-breathing is like putting a plastic bag over your head.

Using a rhythmic breathing pattern to reduce body tension or dissociate from exercise effort can be a helpful technique, but the actual breathing still has to match the metabolic needs of the effort---and ultimately those needs will override everything else.

That makes sense.

BTW, the whole "breathe in through the nose and out the mouth" thing is misguided as well. As intensity of effort increases, you need to be able to ventilate as much air as possible and restricting that by nose-breathing is like putting a plastic bag over your head.

Yes and no. If you're doing something that leaves you gasping, like a HIIT workout, by all means match your breathing with intensity in whatever way you can. If you have to mouth breath to get enough oxygen, go for it. You shouldn't be gasping during a distance run. It's a steady state aerobic activity. When you're doing a steady state aerobic activity your breathing should be heavier than normal, but not gasping. In this case, barring sinus issues or something preventing normal breathing, you should breath in through the nose and out through the mouth. We're built to breathe through our noses, and the sinus cavities clean a lot of impurities out of the air we breath when the nose is used.

I'm not a runner, not a PE teacher and not a doctor. But my, admittedly limited, knowledge of exercise, muscles and air says that's a BAD idea. Your body needs air. The faster our hearts pump, the faster the blood flows and therefore the faster we need to breathe to supply the air for the blood. It's actually not healthy to push yourself to the point of passing out, that's your body's way of telling you to slow down a bit. It's one thing if you are in training, quiet another when we are talking about children in PE.

So, I'd like to hear that teacher explain, to my satisfaction, how holding your breath in this situation is supposed to help!?! You would be denying your body what it needs, when it needs it the most.

It's a school gym coach...they're not fitness experts!

I'm not sure a school coach couldn't be an expert.

It was apparently a technique in vogue with swimming coaches once - meant to increase conditioning faster. Does it work? Does it work for running? Of that, I have no idea......

I'm on a swim team and one of the things we do is breath control but I have never heard of doing that for running.

I can't believe how many people want to go bash the teacher right off based on the words of a fourth grader. I am a teacher - how would you like it if we believed everything your kids told us about you? It could just be a misunderstanding, which you can't know unless you chat with that teacher. Kids sometimes have a different perspective on situations and they aren't being dishonest, they just saw things differently perhaps because of emotions or just because they are KIDS. You can talk quietly with a kid about a poor choice they made and they can go home and tell their parents you yelled at them. Getting angry at a teacher without any discussion with him or her is not going to make the situation any better.

I've read a lot of running training books written by Olympians and Olympic level coaches and I have never heard of the idea of running while holding your breath.

Physiologically it doesn't make any sense.

Mary Decker's coach. Guy was a Brazilian. He also coached a fellow countryman to gold over shorter distances. Here's some info:

http://www.viewzone.com/breathing.html

not sure I've ever heard of any other coaches using the technique in training runners. Again, if the athlete believes in their coach that's probably more important than any "technique" when you're close to your genetic potential anyway. It's the mind that gets you that extra of couple of percentage points and separates the greats from the also rans.

I can't believe how many people want to go bash the teacher right off based on the words of a fourth grader. I am a teacher - how would you like it if we believed everything your kids told us about you? It could just be a misunderstanding, which you can't know unless you chat with that teacher. Kids sometimes have a different perspective on situations and they aren't being dishonest, they just saw things differently perhaps because of emotions or just because they are KIDS. You can talk quietly with a kid about a poor choice they made and they can go home and tell their parents you yelled at them. Getting angry at a teacher without any discussion with him or her is not going to make the situation any better.

Of course, discuss, clarify any possible confusion. Key point though: kid = not happy about gym class. 'Emotions' or 'being kids' are all real experiences.

Whatever misunderstanding took place, if that's what it was, that kid left probably more than one class feeling distressed and this teacher's efforts to remedy that, if it's even been noticed, have sucked so far (or at least been insensitive, which is not unheard of in teachers, sorry).

More flies caught with honey than vinegar, so yes tread carefully, be positive, etc.

Whoa, whoa, whoa here. Exercise physiologists? Asthma testing? Physical violence to the teacher? Guys, we have a kid that isn't used to running, and he got out of breath doing it. This is normal. The teacher gave (poor in my opinion, though the child may have misunderstood as someone else points out) advice. Talk to the teacher, tell him you think the breath holding thing is bad, and help the child by showing him the correct way to improve. If after a legitimate attempt to improve there is still a breathing issue, then start thinking about talking to a doctor. Jumping to asthma at this point is like assuming that every time you have the sniffles you should get a meningitis test.

Nearly everyone gets out of breath when they first start trying to run any distance, this is because nearly everyone tries to run too fast. The speed at which you should start distance training is always slower than seems reasonable.

I agree with this statement here. Training your breathing is as important as training to perform the task at hand. Controlled breathing is obviously very important in whatever sport we pursue. It's hard to imagine why a PE teacher would push this sort of thing on to a child. But, again the child may have misunderstood what the teacher was saying. But, if the child is CORRECT about what the teacher was telling him to do?? That teacher has no business teaching PE class. Because he hasn't a freaking CLUE what he's doing. But, that and a $1.50 can get you a cup of coffee just about anywhere.

Common sense says ...

I run 2-4 miles a day, 5 or more days a week and I dont hold my breath. That sounds ridiculous to me.

Just playing devil's advocate, could your son have confused the message? You may want to hear it straight from the teacher before you get your mama bear claws out. Or is it possible your child hates running enough that he is giving the teacher excuses when breathing trouble isnt really the problem? Kids do that. You ask them to clean their room and they have a jillion excuses, drag their feet, and make it much harder than it needed to be because they just didnt want to. Just get the teachers side before you make a judgement on the subject. I'm not saying your child is lying, but it could be a misunderstanding. I agree with being an advocate for children. But they are human, not perfect. It's hard to see your kids in the wrong, to be objective. This week it's been on our local news that a mentally challenged middle-schooler was kicked off a school bus miles from home when the bus driver realized she wasnt supposed to be on that bus. The school investigated and they didn't even have a bus that went in the route she was found. It later came out that the girl lied because she was scared she would get in trouble for dawdling and missing her bus. But first that mom was all over the news talking about what a horrible human being the bus driver is.

Do talk to the teacher. If he is in fact trying to make your kid hold his breath to run, go to the principal and raise all hell. But get all the info first. Hear both sides. Make sure the 4th grader is fully understanding the teacher. Make sure your kid isnt being obstinent, like kids often do.