proper breathing during your workout

One thing you will hear our instructors saying all the time is "DON'T FORGET TO BREATH".  That might sound simple to do, but when you have been working out for 35 minutes and your legs feel like jello..... It is not so simple anymore.  No one forget to breath in, but we can not breath in unless we breath out. So what we train our students to do is to breath out when they throw a punch or a kick. This releases Co2 from our lungs so we are able to breath in oxygen when we are done the combination. Building strong ab muscles helps control your breathing also. This is why we do lots of ab exercises before and during class. And one other important thing we show our kickboxers about breathing is to breath into your lower abdomen and not breath up into your chest. If you are breathing fast, this is no good. You must practice slowing your breathing down and breath into your lower abdomen. This allows you to take advantage of your full lung capacity. To help slow your breathing down we tell the kickboxers to breath out for twice as long as you breath in. For example breath in for 3 seconds and exhale for 6 seconds. Following these tips will help you maximize your hour long kickboxing class, and these breathing tips can also be very helpful with everyday life if you are moving anything heavy or doing any strenuous activity. So always remember to breath out so you can breath in :)