Maximize weight loss & Muscle Gains with a Healthy Nervous System via Breathwork: The Science Behind Your Body's Secret Weapon
When most of us think about building muscle or losing weight, we tend to focus on the obvious players—strength training, protein intake, supplements, diet and recovery. But what if there was a hidden key to faster muscle gains, enhanced recovery, and overall physical performance? Enter: your nervous system.
The nervous system is the body's control centre, directing everything from movement to recovery, and it plays a major role in how efficiently you can build muscle. Optimizing your nervous system, particularly through breath-work, can be the quickest way to supercharge muscle gains and recovery.
Why am I focusing on muscle gains if you are looking for weightloss? Well.. more muscle mass, burns more calories even at rest because muscle tissue is metabolically active. This means muscles require energy, or calories, to maintain themselves, even when you’re not moving! Fat tissue, on the other hand, is far less active and doesn’t require as much energy to sustain.
So, when you have more muscle mass, your resting metabolic rate (RMR) increases, meaning you burn more calories throughout the day, even while doing nothing. This makes building muscle a key factor in weight loss and long-term weight management, as your body becomes more efficient at burning calories around the clock.
Let’s dive into the science behind this secret weapon and learn why breath-work can take your fitness results to the next level.
Nervous System 101: Your Muscle Command Center
The nervous system is the network of nerves and cells that transmit signals between different parts of the body. For muscle building, two main branches of the nervous system come into play: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS)responsible for the "fight or flight" response,
and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), which controls "rest and digest" functions.
1. Sympathetic Nervous System. When you lift weights or engage in intense exercise, your SNS kicks in. It gets your heart pumping faster, floods your muscles with blood, and helps you push through that extra rep. It’s the engine behind your workout intensity and effort.
2. Parasympathetic Nervous System. After the workout, your PNS takes over. This is where recovery happens. Your heart rate slows, blood flow returns to vital organs, and your body shifts focus to muscle repair and regeneration.
For optimal muscle growth, you need a strong balance between these two systems. Too much sympathetic activity and not enough recovery will lead to overtraining, fatigue, and even muscle loss. But if you optimize both sides, you’ll recover faster, reduce soreness, and build more muscle efficiently.
The Connection Between Breathwork and Nervous System Health
Here's where breathwork comes into play. Breathwork—controlled, conscious breathing techniques—act as a direct line to your nervous system. It’s like having a switchboard to shift between the SNS and PNS, allowing you to tap into the benefits of each at the right time.
When done correctly, breathwork can:
-Activate the sympathetic nervous system, getting you into fight mode to crush your workout
- Improve oxygen delivery to muscles, which is crucial for recovery and growth.
It can also:
- Activate the parasympathetic nervous system, helping you recover more efficiently.
- Reduce stress hormones, like cortisol, which can negatively impact muscle repair, and actually makes you gain weight especially belly fat!
By integrating breathwork into your routine, you're essentially fine-tuning your body’s response and recovery system, which means more time in the anabolic (muscle-building) state and less time feeling sore and fatigued.
How Does Breathwork Boost Muscle Gains and Recovery?
1. Enhances Oxygen Supply to Muscles: Breathwork prior to training especially fast paced breathing practices increase oxygenation slightly there isn’t a lot of room in this however even slightly elevated oxygen in your muscles means better performance during workouts and quicker repair after.
2. Optimizes Recovery Between Sets: Ever noticed how your heart rate spikes between intense sets? This is your sympathetic nervous system at work. By using controlled breathing between sets, you can calm your body down, allowing for quicker recovery and more efficient energy use during your workout.
3. Regulates Stress Hormones- Stress and high cortisol levels can be detrimental to muscle growth, leading to catabolism (the breakdown of muscle). Breathwork is a proven way to reduce stress, lower cortisol levels, and create an ideal environment for muscle recovery.
4. Improves Sleep Quality: Sleep is when most of your muscle recovery and growth happens. By using breathwork to calm your nervous system, you can improve sleep quality, leading to better muscle recovery and overall performance. During sleep testosterone levels naturally rise, especially during the REM stages. This hormone plays a crucial role in muscle repair and growth by boosting protein synthesis and encouraging muscle tissue recovery. A good night’s sleep, therefore, not only recharges the body, but also enhances muscle-building potential, making rest just as important as your workout routine!
Putting It All Together: Training, Recovery, muscle gains, weight loss and Breathwork…
To make the most out of your workouts and see those muscle gains skyrocket, it’s crucial to think beyond just reps and sets, breathwork can be the game changer you didn’t know you needed.
Here’s how to integrate breathwork into your routine:
- Pre-Workout: Use breath techniques like breath of fire (coffee category) to switch on your fight or flight and get you into an active mindset ready to take action, and get that fighter spirit going
- During Workout: Use controlled balanced breaths(water category) during sets equal time inhaling as exhaling to keep your mind focused and increase mind muscle connection.
- Between sets- Use diaphragmatic breathing (3 phase yogic breath) to maintain endurance, kickstart the repair process giving your body enough rest to smash out another killer set. It also activates all your breathing muscles and torso to release pockets of tension, preventing injury.
- Post-Workout: Use breathwork to immediately switch into recovery mode. Techniques like alternate nostril breathing or longer exhale-emphasized breathing, will help lower your heart rate, reduce cortisol, and kick-start muscle recovery. Down regulating your nervous system into rest, digest and recovery mode so you can hit the gym again quicker.
"I personally always go into the stretching area use long hold stretches post work out , slow my breathing using a (whiskey category practice), and end my session in a mindful breath meditation even landing in shavasana ( corps pose -you know that pose where you’re lying down flat eyes closed ) yes I’m that person who does this at the gym 🤣 post workout but it definately helps bring my mind and body back into a state of deep relaxation, integration and repair." Luckily I am part of a super supportive gym that also offers yoga classes so I fit in quite well here!
SHOUT OUT TO KAHMA 24/7 CLYDE NORTH check them out!
"she looks like she's training hard!"
Conclusion: Breathe Your Way to Bigger Gains & Weightloss:
Muscle growth isn’t just about lifting heavy and eating right—it’s about creating an optimal environment for your body to recover, repair, and grow. Your nervous system plays a central role in this process, and breath-work is the fastest way to optimize it.
Optimizing your nervous system through can be a game-changer for weight loss, in more factors than gains, when you're stressed, your body releases cortisol, which can lead to fat storage, particularly around the belly. Breath-work, especially practices that stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system (whiskey category), helps reduce stress and balance cortisol levels. By calming your nervous system, you create an internal environment where your body can more effectively burn fat.
By incorporating breath-work into your training and recovery routine, you can tap into the power of your nervous system to enhance muscle gains, reduce recovery time, and take your performance to new heights. So, next time you’re hitting the gym, don’t just focus on the weights—focus on your breath. It might just be the secret weapon you've been missing for faster, more effective muscle growth which will also lead to a higher RMR so you are burning calories around the clock!
If you head over to my instagram page there are many short videos you can access that guide you through coffee, water and whiskey practices you can use.
However if you prefer to learn these practices thoroughly so you can understand them and practice them correctly join the waitlist for my
FREE 7 DAY BREATH PROGRAM 15MIN A DAY TO A REGULATED NERVOUS SYSTEM
This one will be available very soon so if you drop your details I will send it straight over to you when it’s finished . JOIN THE WAITLIST
Big Love always,
Thelma.