BreathPlay

I would like to introduce you to BreathPlay, the revolutionary training tool I’ve been developing and teaching over the last 28 years.  

It’s based on two simple but powerful ideas—boosting your heart/lung efficiency by switching from air-sucking to air-pushing (switching to the active outbreath), and boosting your technical efficiency by using the active outbreath to mobilize your spine and organize your movement.  

John Howard, known as “the dean of American cycling,” calls BreathPlay “the best kept secret of modern sports.”  

Alexi Grewal, the gold medalist in the 1984 Olympic road race, calls BreathPlay “the most powerful tool that can be imagined.”

The following is a compilation of email excerpts from Jon Billheimer, a Canadian cyclist who has enjoyed phenomenal performance gains from his BreathPlay training.  I hope you’ll find them sufficiently intriguing to arouse your interest.

I welcome your questions and comments.

4/17/2002

Jon's Gems

Old rules simply don’t seem to apply any more. To say that I’m in a mild state of cognitive dissonance is to put it mildly.  I'm virtually transfixed by the progressions and reorganizations that are going on.

I had to really hold back from hammering, simply because turning the cranks felt so easy. And my core strength has jumped way ahead of my bike handling ability. Out of the saddle, I had to hold back so I wouldn’t veer and crash the bike. I’m going to have to learn to sprint all over again.

Regardless of my chosen intensity of effort, my rate of perceived exertion has dropped dramatically.  Training sessions no longer carry the daunting edge that they once did.  Lowered rates of exertion combined with internally focused imagery enable me to work at and above lactate threshold with seeming impunity.  Interval training has become a high form of play.

The acoustical and suggestive architecture of the CDs has enabled me to restructure and rebalance my pedal stroke.  I have acquired enhanced sensitivity to pressure control throughout the entire 360 degree range of the spin cycle as well as heightened and balanced bi-lateral symmetry and pressure control.

Training within the parameters of BreathPlay techniques has resulted in enhanced and accelerated recovery.  At the age of 57 I'm able to do back-to-back tempo and threshold workouts without feeling ill effects.

BreathPlay, supported by the AcoustiCoaching CDs, is the most startlingly efficient teaching/learning tool I have ever experienced.

The BreathPlay patterns provide an ideal architecture for intense efforts.

Recovery’s supposed to get tougher as one gets older. These days it’s getting easier. I didn’t feel yesterday’s threshold session in my legs at all.
I keep thinking these experiences are anomalous, some sort of a mirage.  But they keep happening.  Maybe eventually I'll start believing myself!

The greater the focus on spinal activation, the more relaxed power becomes available.

I'm really impressed how the skills support really hard effort.  Last year, this kind of workout nearly killed me for the first three weeks.  Tonight, I was looking for more gears!

My breathing is as clear as a reflecting pool!  The improvement in pulmonary function really is beyond anything I ever imagined could have happened at this stage of the game for me.

For whatever it's worth, I'm producing about 20% more power right now than at this time last year! And this morning my resting HR was 47.  That's midseason form!  Body fat is between 11 and 12%.  And my kinesthetic sensitivity on the bike has simply gone through the roof!

This is a core proprioceptive awakening of the first magnitude.  These CDs would energize a stone!

Unimaginably rich in kinesthetic textures and nuances, these CDs are a veritable mind-body banquet.

This is an adventure beyond all adventures!

This is elite athlete performance training for the masses.

The difference between the normal "workout" modality and a BreathPlay-directed session is like the difference between swilling cheap, rotgut wine and sipping on Dom Perignon.

This is like the "rocket science" of training methodology and applied exercise physiology.

I have never ridden a bicycle this powerfully, this economically, or this fluidly in my life. This is simply amazing!!!!

If the mafia drug lords ever get wind of this, they'll have your head!

--Message edité par ian jackson--

Hi Ian,

Happy to meet you there, on this new message board opened by the Velo Concept Cy.
I'm sure people who 'll come in this plat form 'll find interest  for your fantastic method.
For me it's Ok I'm a follower from more than one year and I'll never be back to another breath attitude.

Breathplay works.  It will help focus on what is happening at the moment, and will make you a better, more powerful, and less tired cyclist.

Hi Ian,

As you know, I've been an enthusiast of breath play since the beginning. And yes, I'm not a cyclist in the sense of most respondants to this forum, but rather, I run and play tennis. I do cycle from time-to-time. I use the breath play techniques even playing tennis.

That might sound strange to the uninitiated tennis player. But, it like cycling and running is an endurance sport where the abilitity to maximize effort by maximizing the use of oxygen over a long match or workout is similar. Sure, with the ball flying at 100 miles an hour the breath play needs to be unconscious and this can be acquired by walking, running or cycling and using the techniques.

As I move back on forth on the baseline on a long rally, pulverizing the ball and blasting it deep, back to the other baseline, I sprint, take small steps, remain balanced, within myself, and the quick inbreath, long outbreath counting is there, and as I crack that tennis ball with a long outbreath and during that same outbreath race to get the return, and still have breath left to blast another ball cross court before fully inflating my lungs on the next inbreath, it's all there ...

As I've also mentioned, singing in a choir is another form of endurance. Imagine Brahm's requiem - 90 minutes of continued singing - where each outbreath must last over several measures. Breathplay again is important to maintain the right pitch and voice volume during the performance.

All in all a super methodology, and much more diverse than it first appears.

A+

Bill

Ian, I am so thrilled to find this website. I found the original Breathplay book years ago. It belonged to a friend who absolutely refused to share.  Since I couldn't locate a copy anywhere, I copied her book on the back of some old office stationery, and it has been a treasured possession ever since. Are you going to re-publish the book (I hope, I hope)?

When I first read your directions to focus on the exhale and 'allow' the inhale, I thought, "Of course! I used to know that. How did I ever forget it?"

I am so thrilled that you are going to bring this wonderful discipline to the world. Please keep the products coming.  I want this so badly!