Yogic Breathing Exercises for Basketball

According to basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the implementation of yogic breathing exercises helped him to extend his career to a full two decades of playing professional sports. Yogic breathing exercises are necessary for sporting events as they train you to control and regulate your breath while under stress, providing your body with increased levels of oxygen and allowing you to remain calm while under pressure, increasing your ability to make a clutch play or sink a necessary shot when it counts the most.

  1. Abdominal Breathing

    • Master basic abdominal breathing as your first step toward learning proper yogic breathing. When most people breathe, their chest expands and contracts while their abdomen remains static, which is against yogic philosophy, as deep breathing can only occur with the use of the abdomen. To relearn how to breathe properly, lay down and relax--closing your eyes if it helps you to focus. Place your hands on your stomach and concentrate on gently breathing into your abdomen with each breath, feeling it lightly rise and fall. Practice cycles of 20 breaths at a time, aiming to train at least once every day.

    Chest Breathing

    • Learn to use your maximal chest capacity once you have a handle on basic abdominal breathing. After practicing your 20 basic breaths into the abdomen, focus your attention on the chest and ribcage, moving your hands over your solar plexus. For 20 more breaths, aim to expand just your chest and ribcage to their maximal capacity with each breath, mentally "feeling" the lungs expand and contract to their absolute limit. Be sure to avoid becoming tense while performing this exercise, as latent tension will reduce the maximal capacity of your breath, impeding your training efforts.

    Combination Breathing

    • After several weeks of practicing abdominal and chest breathing separately, combine the two into one integrated breath. While lying on your back with your arms and legs outstretched, slowly and steadily breathe in, first aiming to completely expand and fill your abdomen followed by complete expansion of the chest. Slowly exhale, breathing out from the chest first and your abdomen second, feeling your ribcage relax followed by a relaxation of your abdominal wall. This should produce a breath that is both longer and more refined than when performing the constituent parts alone. Repeat this combined breathing for a total of 20 breaths per day. Before long, you will notice improved cardiovascular ability when playing basketball, along with an increased ability to remain calm under stress.