Suunto ambassador William Trubridge knows a thing or two about deep breathing. In 2016, he set a new world record by diving to 102 m on one breath. In 2019, he became the first man to complete an 'underwater crossing' of one of the world’s major channels, swimming across the wild Cook Strait as a series of 934 breath hold dives. William has recently taken another deep dive, this time into the medical world and its treatment of COVID-19. Concerned about the impacts of the virus, he researched how it attacks the body and the medically accepted treatments that help people recover from it. In the process, he learned therapeutic breathing can play a valuable role. Read on for his in-depth report! Scroll down to see William demonstrate a deep breathing exercise!   Therapeutic breathing for COVID-19 By William Trubridge   SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that targets the respiratory system. It attacks our ability to breathe. Now it’s emerging that a strategy to combat this infection may be through breathing itself. First, I need to state clearly I am neither an epidemiologist nor pulmonologist. Everything I describe in this article has been recommended by experts (who I will reference) in one or both of these fields, and I will not speak or extrapolate beyond their recommendations. My career in freediving has meant that I have spent almost two decades harnessing the power of breathing, and I hope to use this experience to help describe and demonstrate how to achieve the recommendations of the experts.For example, the instruction to ‘breathe deeply’ is like telling someone to ‘swim smoothly’– there is a lot of technique inherent in the action. A ‘deep breath’ could have vastly different results depending on whether you start at the base of the lungs, sucking air into the belly, or if instead you simply lift the shoulders and ‘gasp’ the air in. These are the distinctions where I hope to add value. When JK Rowling contracted Covid-19 in April, she employed a technique described by physician Sarfaraz Munshi from Queen Hospital UK that is aimed at maintaining lung function and preventing secondary pneumonia during the illness.1 The Youtube video of his description is here, and the sequence he advises can be summarised as follows: 1. Sit with a straight spine and feet flat on the floor (I add this instruction, since deep breathing while standing risks fainting).2. Breathe in deeply, hold for 5 seconds and exhale – repeat 5 times.3. Breathe in and do a big cough from the base of the lungs (covering your mouth) 4. Repeat Steps 2 & 3.5. Lie flat on your front with a pillow in front of you, taking fairly deep breaths for 10 minutes. This sequence is taught by respiratory physiotherapists also, where it sometimes goes by the name of ‘Active Cycle of Breathing Technique.’ It is important to remember it's a therapeutic treatment, not preventative: there is no reason to expect that it will help to protect against infection with the virus in the first place. The deep breaths help to ventilate alveoli and remove debris that has accumulated on the walls of the alveoli due to damage from the virus. This debris is what blocks oxygen from being absorbed into the blood, which can lead to a condition called ARDS. Lying on your stomach benefits aperture of the smaller airways: since these are distributed closer to your spine if you are lying on your back the weight of your torso will impede them from opening fully. Here is where I will add some extra directions/descriptions to ensure the exercise is as efficient and targeted as possible.   STEP 0 - Motivation   Many reports from Covid patients describe how it completely cripples energy levels. Even sitting up can be an ordeal, and the idea of committing to an exercise like this might require more motivation than what is in the tank. If that’s the case, then don’t commit to it to begin with. Just tell yourself you’re going to change position (which is recommended by pulmonologists to help prevent pneumonia) and come into a seated position. Once you’re there, the idea of one full breath might be feasible. Then see if you can complete just one round of steps 2 & 3. If that’s your limit go straight to Step 5, otherwise stick with it for another round. This way we only commit to doing something easy, that we know we can manage.   STEP 1 - SITTING   Support behind the spine is fine, as long as the spine is kept straight. What you want to avoid is being hunched, as you would be if you’re sitting up in bed leaning back against the headboard, or seated in a soft couch. Instead, try sitting in a chair or on the edge of the bed, with your feet on the ground in both cases. This allows you to access the full range of movement of your breathing muscles, and gives your torso space for your lungs to fully inflate.   STEP 2 - DEEP BREATHS   This is the key part of the exercise. The aim is to maximally inflate the alveoli (air sacs in your lungs, similar to how a sponge has tiny air chambers). In order to do this, we need to ensure that we are ventilating the entire volume of the lungs. Most of that volume is in the base of the lungs (they’re shaped like pyramids), and we actually have to think about breathing ‘into our belly’ in order to inflate this part. This activates the diaphragm muscle: a plate-like muscle that sits flat in your torso and separates the lungs and heart above from the digestive organs below. It works like a plunger, so that when it contracts and moves downwards then it pulls air into the lungs above it. The effect is also to push the stomach down and out, so it looks like the belly itself is inflating. This ‘diaphragmatic’ breath is the most efficient way of breathing, and it is how you should start the deep breaths. Visualise the air being sucked deep into the base of your torso. If you have one hand on your stomach and the other on your chest then your lower hand should move outwards as the stomach ‘inflates’, while the upper hand stays still during this phase. During the second phase you will breathe into the chest. This uses the intercostal muscles to expand the ribcage, and is how we breathe when we ‘gasp’. You will feel outwards movement in your upper hand, and also expansion as the ribs separate away from each other. It is important in this, and all phases of deep breathing, to stop if you ever experience sharp pain. It’s also important to try and maintain relaxation in all muscles that aren’t involved in the breath - check that your head, neck, arms and hands are all completely relaxed. Contraction there can inhibit your ability to breathe deeply. In the final phase of the inhale you will breathe into the upper ‘clavicular’ zone of the chest. Raise the shoulders and chin slightly and continue inhaling until you reach your limit. This phase has a lot less airflow than the previous two phases, and can be removed from the sequence if you’re already experiencing any discomfort or pain.   So Step 2 is actually: 2.1 Breathe powerfully into the belly, using the diaphragm2.2 Breathe into the torso by expanding the ribcage2.3 Elevate the shoulders to allow your breath to fill the upper part of the torso Again, stop at any point if you experience sharp pain or dizziness.Also, breathe through the nose to avoid irritating a dry cough, as the nose warms and moistens the air you take in.   Watch William demonstrate here and try to follow along.   STEP 3 - INHALE AND COUGH   The deep inhale should be the same as those in step 2. When you cough, in order to activate the base of the lungs, focus on squeezing your abdominal wall as you cough - this will make it more powerful and explosive, which should help to expel debris accumulating inside the lungs.   STEP 4 - REPEAT   Again, only if you feel comfortable. Also, give yourself a break between the two cycles. During the break you can relax and breathe normally (shallow).   STEP 5 - LIE FLAT 10 MINS   While lying on your front, the breathing doesn’t need to be as deep as it is in Step 2. You might want to concentrate on just the first phase of the breath - the diaphragmatic inhale - in order to ensure the air arrives at the base of the lungs. If you’re breathing in this way you should feel your belly swell underneath you, pushing down against the floor. There is no recommendation on exactly how many times to repeat this exercise in a day, but there should not be any disadvantage to performing it several times or as much as you are comfortable with. Also, even if you are reading this and not sick, it may be a wise move to perform it once just in case, so that your body has a kind of ‘benchmark’ for how it should feel when you’re well. That way, if the worst comes to the worst and you do contract the virus then you won’t have to learn the technique while sick, and you will be able to get an idea of the condition of your lungs from how it compares to when you were well. As always with any infection, keep hydrated, monitor your symptoms and report them to a doctor – don’t try to self-manage with these breathing exercises alone.   Lead images: Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash © Alex St Jean References https://www.huffpost.com/entry/deep-breathing-coronavirus-patients-symptoms_l_5ea1e2f0c5b6d13e4f73c856 2. lung pathologist Sanjay Mukhopadhyay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPtH42Lnt_Y3. Ema Swingwood, chair of the Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Respiratory Care: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2241191-can-breathing-exercises-really-help-protect-you-from-covid-19/#ixzz6Linrrk4H

Every cloud has its silver lining, and the upside to the COVID-19 related pool closures is it challenges swimmers to suit up and go open water swimming. If you’re looking for adventure, look no further than swimming in the majesty of nature. “Getting out of the swimming pools, and getting out into nature gives a completely different perspective to swimming,” says Dag Oliver, triathlete and general manager of the notorious Norseman Xtreme Triathlon. “It’s like the difference between track running and trail running. It gives a new dimension to the swimming experience.”   Stay safe and warm Before taking the plunge, read through the Norseman Xtreme Triathlon swim code to make sure you stay and warm. The first rule is never swim alone. 10 reasons to swim with a Suunto watch They are watertight All Suunto watches are waterproof. And when our watches say waterproof to 100 m, they really mean it. Our products are tested in extreme conditions in Finland. If it can survive Finland, it can survive anything. They tell you the temperature Suunto watches with a pressure sensor, such as the Suunto 9 Peak and Suunto 9 Baro also tell you the temperature. To get an accurate reading on the water temperature, hold your watch by its strap underwater for a minute or two before beginning your swim. Knowing the temperature will give you an idea of how long you would like to stay in the water. Post swim, you can also see the temperature in your activity data.   Suunto Heatmaps show you the popular openwater swimming spots all over the world. You can find swimming spots with Suunto Heatmaps Suunto App Heatmaps makes it easy to find popular open water swimming spots. And popular spots are likely to be safe spots. Based on millions of workouts, Heatmaps show where the Suunto community loves to train across the planet. You can filter the map by activity, like swimming, running, cycling etc. Check out our Heatmaps in Suunto App or directly in our smart Suunto 7 watch. Heatmaps is especially helpful if you are new to an area or just visiting; it’s not always apparent where the water quality is good, where there are strong currents or where there is marine traffic. It also shows you where local swimmers enter the water. Sometimes it isn’t easy finding the safest entry point. You can identify where they swam to, and where swimmers don’t go, and where they exit. GPS tracks your swims With GPS you can look back at your swim and see where you went, and whether you zigzagged like a drunk driver, or followed the straightest line between points A and B. Learning to swim straight is important for conserving energy and time. Tracking with GPS while swimming with your watch on your wrist is challenging because as soon as it’s submerged the signal is lost. This means GPS works with freestyle, backstroke and butterfly because the watch is raised out of the water with each stroke. It doesn’t work with breaststroke. One way to ensure a better GPS signal is to stash your watch underneath your swim cap at the back of your head. But to ensure perfect tracking, stow your watch in your swimming tow float. They record your heart rate The best way to record your heart rate while swimming is by wearing a Suunto Smart Sensor heart rate belt around your chest. However, the BLE signal between the heart rate monitor and your watch cannot be transmitted underwater. The Smart Sensor instead stores the data and automatically transmits it to the watch once you are out of the water. Suunto watches also have optical heart rate sensing functionality, but this doesn’t work if the watch is on the outside of your wetsuit. Even against your skin, it’s not as reliable as a Smart Sensor strap. They capture important metrics Suunto technology provides real-time training intelligence. When you’re in the water you can see what’s happening and adjust your stroke, pace, intervals and breaks accordingly. A key open water swimming metric is duration. Your watch will tell you how long you’ve been in the water. This is important to keep an eye on, especially in cold water.   Photo by Todd Quackenbush on Unsplash You can see when you’re slacking off A common mistake for novice open water swimmers is to do a long swim session without any breaks. Whereas when they’re in the pool, it’s common to break down the session into shorter intervals. This ensures you maintain good technique as it helps you stay fresh throughout the session. Follow the same logic for open water swimming. Don’t just cruise for miles/kilometres, but break up your session with intervals and rest periods. Your Suunto watch can help you with interval training. For example, do hard two minute intervals with 30 second rests between them. Your Suunto watch will vibrate and beep when each interval and rest period is over. You can see when your technique is getting sloppy Your Suunto watch captures the number of strokes you are doing per minute. Out on an open water swim, this useful metric tells you when your stroke technique is deteriorating as you become more fatigued. Then you can concentrate on correcting it.   Photo by Jon Del Rivero on Unsplash They tell you your SWOLF Improving your stroke mechanics is essential for competitive sport. Suunto watches analyze your sessions, identify the swim style, stroke rates and calculate your SWOLF score. Swim-Golf, or SWOLF, is a score based on a combination of stroke rate and time in water, giving an indication of how efficient you are as a swimmer. The reference to golf comes from the fact that, like with golf, the lower your score the better you are. The fewer strokes and the less time you take in the water, the more efficient you are. As your swimming technique improves, you will be able to swim faster with the same stroke rate, which means each stroke is propelling you further forward. They connect with Swim.com Suunto can be synced with Swim.com, the world’s most advanced swimming dedicated platform and community. You will get in-depth swim specific analysis, helping you to improve. Another cool feature at Swim.com is they select the workout of the week, encouraging its community members to try to climb the swim team leaderboards.   Read more articles Blaze fresh routes The benefits of training to music and making your best playlist How to improve your walking technique        

Practice mindful walking in your local park or forest. Photo by Biel Morro on Unsplash Mindful walking is a way of learning to enjoy the simplicity of the present moment. It’s not a weird, uptight way of walking. It’s all about being natural and relaxed, but paying attention in a particular way. Berlin based dynamic movement and mindfulness teacher Tatjana Mesar often includes mindful walking exercises in her yoga classes and teacher training courses. She says it teaches people to maintain a broader awareness of what’s happening in the moment, rather than being distracted by one thing or another. “Walking mindfully is an opportunity to make life fresh everyday,” Tatjana says. “Even though we walk the same route, with a mindful mindset it will be fresh each time.” Let’s be honest, it’s easy to get distracted while taking a stroll, especially in the city. Attention grabbing advertising, attractive people who catch the eye, and loud noises – they bombard our senses, tugginh them in different directions. “We do live in an attention economy so there are a lot of things designed to rob our attention,” Tatjana says. “Mindfulness helps us remain aware of the whole picture rather than being pulled into those things.” All this sensory stimuli can be pleasant or unpleasant, Tatjana expains, causing us to either be attracted or repelled. Police sirens might cause us to tense up, and feel the urge to move away. Colourful lights, on the other hand, catch our eyes and draw us towards them. This constant pushing and pulling is tiring. We can also get lost in our own thoughts, becoming oblivious to the world around us. Here are Tatjana’s five steps to learn how to walk mindfully. Mindful walking helps us to feel and notice more as we walk. Photo by Jon Flobrant on Unsplash Take mindful nature walks It might be a lot easier for you to learn to walk mindfully in a nice park or forest than in a busy city. There are far fewer distractions and it’s easier to relax, which is the heart and soul of walking with presence. “When we remove ourselves from the city and go into nature, our senses become more open and curious and we immerse ourselves in the landscape,” Tatjana says. “Now the trick is to apply what we learn to the city.” Open your awareness Whether you’re practicing mindful walking in nature or the city, the next step is to learn to maintain a wide field of awareness rather than being pulled into details. There are two aspects to this: Sight: “Allow everything to enter your visual field without picking and choosing one object,” Tatjana says. “When you notice you are caught in a detail, simply widen your perspective again. It's like a camera; we can choose wide or narrow lens. We want to maintain a wide angle perspective.” Sound: This is the same as above, but applied to what we hear. Rather than zooming in on one sound, try to maintain a broader awareness of all the sounds around you. This takes time and practice to learn. “Try to keep the attention present on everything you are hearing,” Tatjana says. One footstep at a time The next step is to learn to anchor your attention on the process of walking itself. The main anchor point is the feeling of the feet on the ground. There are two stages to this: Each step: To begin with, just focus on the feeling of your feet on the ground; the weight shifting from one foot to the other. “ If your mind is very busy, you can stay with this the whole time,” Tatjana says. “Just know when your feet are touching the ground and the movement of the body. Don’t interpret it in any way, just stay with direct recognition.” Whole body: The second stage is to broaden your awareness to include feeling the whole body, as well as your feet. Notice the legs and arms swinging, and the subtle rotation in the spine. “Be aware of movement unfolding in the body as you walk,” Tatjana says. “As the body moves the mind rests in that movement rather than running away with thoughts. I compare it to lying in a hammock; the hammock is moving, but you are relaxed.” Keep it fresh Humans are creatures of habit. We like to have a comfortable routine to stick to. But this can cause us to operate on automatic pilot, so we don’t really tune into what’s happening. “If we make our walking a routine, doing the same thing everyday, then we end up on autopilot, limiting life to mindless repetition,” Tatjana says. “It’s important to realise that we have other options. So don’t always walk in the same streets. Find a way to change the route.” Practice at home Mindfulness is all about interrupting our routines so we wake up to the freshness of life. Home is usually a place we are the most routinised. “It’s nice to slow down at home and be aware of your feet on the ground as you walk around,” Tatjana says. “Learning to slow down is the key.” Lead images: Photo by aliunix on Unsplash Photo by Jon Flobrant on Unsplash Read more articles How to walk your way to good health How to improve your walking technique 7 tips to plan a route in the mountains

As a salute to all the frontline community heroes who have kept services running throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Adidas Running has launched a donation relay to support relief efforts. From May 29 - June 7, for every hour you exercise, regardless of sport, Adidas Running is giving $1USD to the WHO COVID-19 Solidarity Response fund. The goal of the #HomeTeamHero challenge is to inspire one million workout hours, raising one million US dollars! All you need to do is connect your Suunto app and Adidas Running accounts, join the challenge, record your next workout with your Suunto watch and, boom, your activity is automatically synced with your Adidas Running account and your time and sweat will support the WHO’s COVID-19 relief efforts. Who needs more motivation than that?   Join the #HomeTeamHero donation relay!     All the latest Suunto watches – the 3, 5, 7 and 9 – are now compatible with the Adidas Running app (formerly called Runtastic). Adidas Running is a passionate community, and offers regular challenges, tips on how to train and tools to follow your training and progress. There is both a free version of the app, and a premium membership with extra benefits. To sync with Adidas Running, go to your Profile in Suunto App and select Connect to other services. Select Adidas Running and connect your account. All your new workouts will then automatically flow to Adidas Running. To show the endurance power of Suunto users and to represent, you can also join the Suunto group in the Adidas Running app. Let’s show them how we do it!   All images: © Thomas Marzusch, Kreativ-Instinkt   Read more articles Blaze fresh routes with Suunto Heatmaps  The benefits of training to music and making your best playlist How to adapt your training when the unexpected strikes How to improve your walking technique

Rather than follow the herd, with Suunto Heatmaps you can find places where the crowd doesn't train. Then paint the town red and yellow with your own training glow. Whether you're looking for running, cycling, swimming or hiking routes, Heatmaps shows where the hotspots are, and where there's space for you to stay safe and keep your distance. View Heatmaps on Suunto app and offline with Suunto 7 Based on millions of workouts, Heatmaps show where the Suunto community loves to train across the planet. Discover new training routes in your own neighborhood, find the popular local spots when you are somewhere new or – to stay safe and keep your distance – avoid the much-travelled trails. To view activity specific Heatmaps and to plan routes go to the map view of your Suunto app and select the desired Heatmap layer. If you don’t have Suunto app yet, get it from the App Store or Google Play and start exploring. On a Suunto 7 you have easy, offline access to both Heatmaps and detailed terrain maps when you're exercising outdoors. You can see your track on the map, use Heatmaps to explore new routes, or follow your track back to where you started from.

Photo by Matic Kozinc on Unsplash Walking feels like the most natural thing in the world. It’s just one foot in front of another, right? Well yes, but not quite. In this second article in our series on walking your way to good health (first article here), dynamic movement and mindfulness teacher Tatjana Mesar explains how there is more to walking well than you might guess. She runs Zen Yoga by Dynamic Mindfulness, a studio and school in Berlin, and trains yoga teachers. Tatjana is passionate about helping people find more freedom and spontaneity in their movement, and breaking out of conditioned and limiting movement patterns. When she isn’t teaching, Tatjana studies the science of movement, and implements what’s relevant into her training. Recently, she has been studying Axis Syllabus, a biomechanical user manual and movement system. How we walk, our gait, is a central part of that training. Socially ingrained gait patterns What research shows is that how we walk, our gait mechanics, isn’t as “natural” as we might believe. We learn to walk by observing our parents and the world around us. As we grow up, we embody the patterns we see. These can limit the full potential of our gait. Some of us unconsciouly prevent the pelvis and arms from swinging because of cultural taboos that frown upon having a gait as being, for example, too free. “One of the main elements regarding our gait is the counter lateral movement pattern (swinging the opposite arm and leg forward as we walk), which is an engineering marvel of human movement,” Tatjana says. “However, we don't really use it to its full potential due to the fact that walking is mostly cultural.” “Changing the gait pattern is a process,” Tatjana continues. “It’s worth the effort because there’s usually a huge leak of energy when our gait is unbalanced or restricted.” Here are three tips to improve your technique. Explore your cross lateral pattern You can do this exercise at home before you even step out the door. Its purpose is to learn to walk more freely. To begin with, stand in one spot, and practice swinging your arms forward and back, allowing the pelvis to rotate side to side. As you do this bounce a little in your knees. Once you have a feeling for this, begin taking steps forward, swinging the opposite arm and leg forward as you do so. Really allow your arms to swing. Try to relax as you do this, and don’t worry if it feels weird. Unlearning old and learning new movement patterns always feels awkward at the beginning. Practice this, off and on, when you are out walking, and over time it will become more natural. Click play to watch Tatjana demonstrating a natural, free gait. Check your head position Another common issue with how we walk is our head position. It’s common for people to look down, tilting their head forward. “Especially because so often now we are walking and looking down at our smartphones,” Tatjana says. “The head adds six to eight kilograms of weight, but by tilting the head forward it increases to something like twenty kilograms. If the head is positioned directly above the shoulders, with the chin parallel to the ground, then that weight is transferred down into the feet and ground.” When you’re walking, Tatjana advises to keep your head upright, with your eyes looking ahead, not on the ground below. “Also, relax your lower jaw, even slightly open the mouth to facilitate this, and relax the root of the tongue,” she says. In this clip, Tatjana demonstrates a fun exercise to help free the pelvis. Roll the feet How you place your feet as you walk is also important. The correct technique, Tatjana says, is to roll the feet down as you step through. First place the centre of the heel, then roll the outside edge of the foot down before placing the outer toes, and rolling down the inner toes. This is also something to take your time with exploring. Don’t force yourself to do it all the time. It’s good to spend some time noticing how you are already placing the feet. “Imagine when you are walking you are kissing the earth with your feet,” Tatjana says. “This will help your footsteps to become more sensitive and mindful.” Lead image: Photo by Noah Phung on Unsplash Read more articles How to walk your way to good health The benefits of training to music and making your best playlist 7 recovery tips for immune fitness