Jack Draper trains his breathing to optimise his sports performance
Whilst it is still early days, professional athletes are waking up to the benefits of optimising their breathing habits in order to improve their sports performance and recovery.
Jack Draper, British professional tennis player, is not the first to realise the benefits of retraining his breathing habits, with Iga Swiatek seen taping her mouth up back in 2023.
Jack Draper’s dramatic sporting performance, with everything from anxiety management to quicker recovery and posture on court, has spread like wildfire across the papers and news channels, and it is about time breathing habits got this exposure.
Jack Draper was a mouth breather having experienced sinus issues as a child. “I had a lot of problems with my sinuses when I was younger,“ Draper was quoted in the Telegraph, “so I breathe a lot through my mouth. When you are anxious or when you have long points and you have to recover quickly, it’s not efficient to breathe through your mouth.”
The basic science behind efficiency of nose breathing
Put simply, mouth breathing inhalation brings dry, unfiltered, irritating air into the lungs, reducing lung efficiency. Mouth breathing exhalation dumps carbon dioxide faster than is optimal, impacting its ability to widen airways and blood vessels. As well as being a dilator, carbon dioxide presence helps release oxygen from the haemoglobin, ensuring better oxygen delivery to cells. When mouth breathing this oxygenation of the cells is reduced. This can be better understood by reading up on the Bohr effect.
Nose breathing inhalation filters and prepares air for the lungs for optimal efficiency. Nose breathing inhalation also creates nitric oxide, also a dilation gas for improved aiways and blood vessels, in addition to assisting with defence against viruses. Nose breathing inhalation also increases the air pressure, encouraging more air into the depths of the lungs, creating better efficiency of the lungs.
Imagine, the lungs is an upside down tree, the canopy is therefore in the bottom, and the leaves is where the gas transfer happens. [See image on my t-shirt].
Nose breathing exhalation slows the heart rate, whilst calming the nervous system and maintaining more carbon dioxide, for just long enough, in order to improve oxygenation. In addition to this, nose breathing exhalation, moistens and warms the nasal airway in order to better prepare the new air.
Something that is usually overlooked, even by many breath coaches is the position of the tongue, when retraining nasal breathing. This is the most important first step I use with every client I work with.
If you haven’t yet watched TEDx talk: How To Optimise Your Breathing Habits, now would be a good time to learn about the transformative ‘3 spots of breathing’.
Athletes can use injury time to train breathing habits easier
Tennis player, Jack Draper was smart, because he used time off with an injury to get curious about what he could work on to improve his performance upon returning. What he might not have realised though, is that injury time can often be the best time to retrain breathing habits as an athlete.
When an athlete is training hard, they are pushing their breathing and their body for much of the day. If there is anxiety linked to the increased breathing, it can create a challenging environment to train in and the very time that makes retraining breathing habits easier is minimised. This is what I call the ‘human habit training’. If we are to expect ourselves to perform at high intensity with efficiency, we need to improve the every day habits and awareness first.
This is not to say that an athlete cannot retrain their breathing habits, whilst training hard, but it certainly takes more prioritisation. The benefits of using injury time to retrain breathing habits include encouraging better recovery through better oxygenation of the body during that time, feeling less frustrated by the time out of usual training structures, but also being able to more gently and systematically work on adjusting breath perception, posture, awareness, tolerance, self belief and daily habits.
Aren’t athletes trained to breathe better by their coaches?
Whilst awareness of breath is improving, many athletes are still only learning breathwork, if that, entirely missing out on breathing habit education, much like the rest of the population. There are athletes who are still being given unhelpful or incorrect information on breathing.
I was personally surprised upon speaking to a number of Olympians when I was hired to educate Olympians on breathing habits at OLY House at the Paris Olympics in 2024. It was amazing how many had never been showed the impact of their breathing habits or the restrictions they were living with. Those who had the best education were mostly self taught, because they were incredibly curious about optimising.
One of these optimisers who I had the privilege of educating was Olympic Decathlete, Slaven Dizdarević. Here’s what Slaven Dizdarević had to say in the video below, “I think I’m quite knowledgeable about the industry of sport, and I always learn new things, but this was something really new. I will dig a little bit deeper and definitely look at what you [Jane Tarrant] are doing and practice, because you gave me something new, interesting, and I already could see use of it, not only for me but…also in my coaching.“
Who is Jane Tarrant?
Jane Tarrant is a leading trainer and educator in breathing habit optimisation, as well as an international speaker. As the founder of LiNK BREATHING, she is known for coining the ‘D-spot’ of breathing, a concept she introduced in her TEDx talk and book. Specialising in the often-overlooked subtleties of breathing habits, beyond traditional breathwork, Jane trains individuals with deteriorated breathing habits and those seeking to optimise their health and performance. Her expertise is sought after by professional athletes, business leaders, companies, and families alike.
Jane is based in Bicester, Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom, but she works internationally either via Zoom or in person.
Contact Jane via jane@linkbreathing.co.uk or book an assessment call.
Jane Tarrant holding a breathing habits optimisation session with runners at Steve Cram’s Training Camp.