Breathing Coach Jane Tarrant on How to Fix Dysfunctional Breathing — Triathlete

Teaching people to breathe properly sounds simple enough to be almost patronizing. After all, whether consciously or automatically, it’s an activity we perform approximately 20,000 times each day and must surely have mastered by now. But many of us have spent decades reinforcing dysfunctional habits without even realizing it.

Jane Tarrant, founder of Link Breathing, says that even elite athletes often lack a fundamental education on breathing, which can ultimately degrade their sleep, health, and athletic recovery. This hidden gap in knowledge means that even the fittest individuals may be breathing in maladaptive ways without even realizing it.

From personal struggle to professional focus

Attempting to fix her own breathing flaws led Jane Tarrant to obsess over a subject that turned into a career. She looked back over her experiences, from a first panic attack on New Year’s Eve in 1999, aged 12 (“I wasn’t necessarily an anxious type,” she says), to feeling breathless during physical education and a misdiagnosis of sport-induced asthma.

The sum of these personal experiences eventually led to a transformative “lightbulb moment” for Tarrant, where she realized “I hadn’t been able to breathe properly since I was seven. I remember sitting on the bedroom floor, thinking: I can get air through my nose, but it doesn’t feel like enough, so I’m breathing through my mouth.”

This kicked off a period of curiosity and discovery, first by studying meditation, yoga, and various breathwork practices, including Buteyko breathing. This technique, created by Soviet doctor Konstantin Buteyko to treat asthma, was later refined by Patrick McKeown as the Oxygen Advantage, focusing on enhancing the body’s tolerance to carbon dioxide.

She noted that while many sought quick “hacks,” there was a lack of focus on posture, daily habits, and the influence of trauma. She also identified a concerning lack of awareness about breathing techniques across various medical fields, including general practitioners (GPs), chiropractors, orthodontists, osteopaths, and even ENT (ear, nose, throat) specialists. Despite performing surgeries to improve breathing structurally, they lacked knowledge of how proper tongue placement or CO2 tolerance retraining could serve as a non-invasive solution.

Video: Jane Tarrant explains why you should train your tongue for breathing

The more she learned, the more she realized that many people were like she once was, operating under the assumption that if her breathing technique were significant, it would have been brought to her attention sooner. Today, Tarrant finds dysfunctional breathing patterns in the clients she trains (or more appropriately, retrains), many unaware just how negatively it is impacting their lives.

“You’re really fit, but there’s something wrong,” she explains. “It’s something that’s impacting your sleep, your health, and your recovery as you push further and harder in your sport. And it’s quite often the degradation of breathing habits.”

Simplifying complex breathing concepts

In her work teaching people how to breathe better, Tarrant swaps complicated language for a love of metaphor, such as picturing the lungs as an upside-down tree and urging us to breathe into the little leaves of the canopy rather than the trunk and just a couple of branches.

To illustrate low carbon dioxide tolerance (a frequently misunderstood aspect of respiratory mechanics), Tarrant uses the analogy of queuing buses transporting oxygen. In this scenario, passengers cannot efficiently disembark because the system lacks sufficient CO2, causing blood vessels to constrict rather than dilate. She notes that mouth or upper-chest breathing exhausts CO2 too quickly, preventing it from performing its vital role. This process diminishes CO2 tolerance, creating a cycle where the body is prematurely triggered to gasp for air, leading to further habit degradation.

“I focus on how we simplify it,” she says. “Where that person that I’ve met for one hour can go and teach it to their five-year-old, who can also teach it to their friend, and they can remember it themselves.”

The three major themes of dysfunctional breathing

So, what are we getting wrong about breathing? Tarrant says there are three major themes she sees in her work.

Perception is a primary hurdle. Many people associate a “deep breath” with vertical movement, which is often shallow. Tarrant notes that our understanding is skewed by media and sports, but focusing on better mechanics can resolve breathing blocks.

Misconceptions also exist regarding oxygen volume. Efficiency matters more than lung capacity; it is about using less energy for intake and delivering oxygen effectively to cells. “Overbreathers” often use back-up muscles unnecessarily, even at rest, when we already exhale 80% of inhaled oxygen.

The third and most important theme is physical restriction (or “impacted function”). A narrow palate or crowded teeth can compromise airways. Childhood issues like enlarged tonsils often lead to mouth breathing because the tongue fails to support the airway.

The tongue should act as an internal brace to support dental development and ensure nasal breathing. Nasal breathing filters air, whereas mouth breathing introduces dry, cold, and irritating air that can inflame the lungs. Tarrant says training and tongue release techniques can be helpful in guiding the tongue to its rightful place and allow for better nasal breathing.

But breathing restrictions can be in less-obvious places, too: the mid-to-upper back, for example, where an unbalanced trapezius muscle can help lock us into a hunched position, restricting airflow.

“I think it’s often overlooked,” Tarrant says of this muscle. “It has three layers that can become overactive and underactive. When you release the imbalance, it opens up the ability to pull the head back and soften that rounding in the back to pull the shoulders down in a comfortable, relaxed way.”

Another area of restriction could be through a pelvic tilt, something she often sees in people with hypermobility. “Their hips tip forward, their lower back is scooped, their upper back leans backward, and then their head leans forward to compensate — like a zigzag — not an elegant ballerina pulled up, confident, relaxed pose. They either collapse into themselves or extend into hypermobility angles. If we make the correct changes, we’re much more primed for the breath just to go where it should.”

Three spots you should know to breathe better

Tarrant pinpoints three positions on the torso she feels, if better understood, would help us all breathe better.

Video: Jane Tarrant demonstrates what to aim for when breathing

The D-Spot

The first is the D-spot, with D standing for diaphragm. Its position is approximately four fingers below the sternum and about a hand width above the belly button.

“Until you have the ability to open up the diaphragm, you’re going to be using all your backup muscles,” she explains. “It’s difficult to understand what your diaphragm’s even doing unless your fingers are right up under your ribs, and if you try that you’re probably going to feel nauseous from the feeling of it. We don’t want to belly-breathe! We want the D-spot working in isolation.”

Using the D-spot helps the breath reach the depths of the lungs, finding plenty of those “little leaves” of the metaphorical upside-down tree with minimal effort. “If your shoulders are hunched, you’ll have to lift your pectoral muscles off of your diaphragm with every breath, and if you are completely curved, your D-spot won’t work at all,” Tarrant says. “You’ll just be using upper back-up muscles and the belly back-up muscles. Those are your ‘survive’ rather than ‘thrive’ muscles.”

The D-spot not only tells us whether we’re breathing correctly (it should move out as we breathe in) but also helps gauge the size of the breath.

“When at rest, a small movement of the D-spot should be enough, with no upper chest to finish it off. To an overbreather, this will feel ‘not enough’ until they retrain their breathing habits.” Tarrant says. “Some people breathe backward, where the D-spot moves in on the inhale. This definitely needs retraining.”

The R-Spots

Next are the R-spots, with R referencing rib muscles. “Their position is a bit more generic: just the side of the ribs, but at the same height as the D-spot,” Tarrant says. “When you’re walking, for example, you might no longer be only using your D-spot, but there should still be no vertical movement or belly bloating.”

From using a third of the expansion of the rib cage when walking, Tarrant says we should be able to access two-thirds when running, with the capacity for more if needed.

The NOS buttons

Finally, Tarrant talks about the NOS buttons, shamelessly pinched from The Fast and the Furious movies, where a device used by the protagonists triggers an instant speed boost by injecting nitrous oxide into the vehicle’s engine.

“In the body, [the NOS buttons] are for super-fast recovery,” Tarrant says. “Athletes often get to the point where they’re breathless, gasp through their mouth, and lift into the upper chest to recover. This is what they think recovery is, and what they feel is accessible to them.”

Instead, Tarrant promotes breathing into two spots of the back ribs, either side of the spine at the same height as the D and R-spots, providing the two or three deep breaths required when you crest the top of a hill.

“We feel as if we desperately need something, but it’s not necessarily about going to your mouth, but to your NOS buttons. It’s powerful, and you do it during a race at any point, but think of it a bit like that canister in your car. Use it at the moment you really need it.”

Optimizing your breathing for triathlon

Jane Tarrant breaks down how optimizing breathing during a race can help our triathlon performance.

Video: Jane Tarrant outlines how to unlock easier breathing

Dealing with pre-race anxiety

“Pre-race is one of the most important times for breathing, but it’s so overlooked,” she says. “We might notice an increase in our breath, and can either slow our breathing or increase our rate of movement to match.”

For those accustomed to physical activity, jogging in place can be a more natural way to find calm than staying still. This movement provides a foundation for regulating your breathing rhythm. Dancing is also a way to manage pre-race tension, Tarrant says: “We co-regulate with those around us, which is a really powerful, human concept.”

Tarrant also recommends athletes incorporate a “breath pause” to disrupt habitual patterns and allow for a more mindful restart. During this practice, prioritize nasal breathing and engage the D-spot, rather than relying on the mouth and upper chest.

Adapting to cold water shock

Every time you swim, you have an opportunity to train your body to enter water without struggling with your breath. Learn to exhale for 10 seconds without an inhalation, all through the nose and completely calmly.

The next inhale should be a slow, deep, expansive breath, and then exhale again for a number of seconds to calm the nervous system. Tell yourself you’re safe, even though it’s cold. Try: “It‘s a stressful scenario, but my body is fine.”

Exiting the water and navigating for transition

As you exit the water and stand up, turn to your NOS buttons to get that instant breath recovery and be ready for the bike.

Opening up those muscles helps you negotiate the transition area with a bit more finesse, and when you mount the bike, you’re already feeling calmer.

Breathing on the bike

Keep your breath slow to start and check in occasionally to slow it down during the ride, trying to get into those side ribs again.

We see a range of postures on the bike leg, and athletes in a more neutral position will likely be able to access more expansion through the ribs than riders who are hunched up. But there can be a trade-off between aerodynamics and breathing, and this is where cyclists need to play.

Feedback from their body and the data will tell them what feels and delivers better. Tarrant says the solution isn’t always the breath work, but freeing the restriction. If somebody shortens the cranks, for example, to create a bit more of a hip angle, they might find it easier to breathe, or mobility work that allows you to shift the pelvis slightly might just be enough to open up the back ribs.

Heading out on the run

After a significant amount of time hunkered down on the bike, the start of the run is a good time for a traps twist to open the posture back up,

It’s easier when standing still (perhaps in transition), but can also be done when running.

“Many athletes aren’t thinking about posture and how being bent over compromises our breathing,” Tarrant says, “but we often see form collapsing on the run, which is why the reset is so important.”