Hello, and welcome to the next video. This video is called stitch and it's based on breathing while running. Hey, do you remember when you first started running? When I first started running, I had difficulty talking to anyone. I remember when I was in a running group and there's people, I saw them all getting to the groups and they were chatting with their partner and they talk about this and they talk about that and people would come up to me and try to talk to me,

try to get me going. And cause I'm a relatively shy guy and they're trying to talk to me and I try to talk back and I just can't do it. I'm like, look, I want to run. I'm enjoying the group. I just can't. I just can't talk to you. I just, I can't do it. I could not do it because whenever I tried to talk,

I'd get out of breath. I get out of rhythm. I'd feel horrible. And I'd get these pains in my side, known as a side stitch. And it would really just make me stop. I remember doing some triathlons and I would do good in the swim. Good in the bike, but I'm running, you know, running, running, running.

And then I get to a point in the race where I go, Oh my gosh, I got this pain in my side. That is making me stop. So what I used to do is this. I pinch it with my, my fingers, pinch it and go, that's going to help it go away. And then I went on this side on this side and then that didn't work.

So then I read, well, maybe you got to run with your arm up in the air. And that, that helps get rid of it. So I tried that. I tried everything, but what usually would help is I'd have to stop. I'd have to stop slow down...Let everyone that's near me pass me, which was for me hard to take.

And then I get into a rhythm where I could run. And it took me years on how to figure this out. I read books, I took some classes and I did a lot of practice on myself to get myself rid of stitches. Now, if you come run with me, like I am the guy..... now who will chat, chat, chat,

chat, chat throughout the whole time. I've figured this out. And it really comes down to, well, how do we breathe when we're running? Now I want to, we have a little presentation here, PowerPoint. So I'm going to stop talking. No, I'm going to stop standing up and talking to you. And I continue talking into the computer.

Let's go to the PowerPoint and learn about how to breathe when you're running and stitches. Run breathing. What we want to do is you want to aim to belly breathe. When I first learned this, I go, what the heck is belly breathing? There's basically two types of, well, look, I'm not a breathing expert, but what I understand is there's two types of breathing.

You can breathe with your belly or you can breathe with your chest. And most, I think a lot of guys, a lot of people in North America are chest breathers and they're not belly breathers. Cause they don't want to let their belly out. They're always kind of sucking the belly in. That was for sure me. I was not a belly breather.

I was a chest breather. So I had to learn how to belly breathe. And basically what you can do. You can lie down on the floor, put your hand on your belly. And when you inhale, your belly should rise. And when you exhale, your belly should, should fall down. That's belly breathing. If you find that, if you put your hand on the chest,

when you inhale your chest rises, then when you exhale your chest falls, but your belly stays the same. Then you are chest breather.   You need to switch that up. That's the first thing you want to become a belly breather or breathing from your diaphragm or a diaphragmatic breather. Number two, did you know that we all breathe in a footed pattern?

Like when we're running, did you know that? I didn't know that. So breathing in a footed pattern basically just means that we're breathing in and out when we're landing on a particular foot and then that's it.  Most runners are right footed breathers, which means we are inhaling and exhaling off of our right foot.  Most use a 2 - 2 rhythm.

Which means when we are inhaling we take two steps and exhaling over two steps. Try to breathe in through the nose and mouth and breathe out through the mouth. Although this can be a personal preference.  So remember in the beginning of the video, I talked about a side stitch. This was a picture of me.....well Its not actually a picture of me,

but this was me in races. I would get to a point where I had such a bad stitch in my side that I would have to stop. And it was really, really painful. So what do you do? Okay. So the first thing you do is this. You need to pay attention to what foot are you exhaling on? Do you know if I came up to you and said,

Hey, what foot are you exhaling on? Would you be able to say?  There's probably a very good chance that you do not know? So the first thing we need to do is become aware. What foot are you exhaling on? Got it. All right.  Now, number two, I know this is very high-tech and very fancy.

Now you switch it around. So now instead of exhaling.....so if you were exhaling on your right foot, you get the stitch. What do you do? Now, you focus on exhaling on your left foot.   And that's it.. And you might think Todd that's that's too easy. Well, maybe some things in life are easy and I like it.

So things that I want you to do for the breathing is I want you to focus on breathing from your belly, let your belly out. I don't know. I know it's hard to do that, but let your belly out. Don't breathe from your chest, breathe from your belly and then become aware of what foot are you exhaling on? Is it your left foot or your right foot?

And you know what? Right now I don't even know which one it is. I think it's my left foot. I think it's my left foot, but who knows? I find that when I'm running, I can get it. And then, Oh, right, it's that foot. And then when I get the stitch, I got to switch over.

I want to tell you a story years and years ago.  When I was just first starting getting into coaching, I was coaching this guy who wanted to run, he was doing triathlons. And one of the stepping stone events he was doing was a half marathon. And he wanted to run a half marathon in 90 minutes. And I said, all right, I'll run with you.

Why not? I'll sign up. I did not have a lot of experience running a half marathon. We did not have paces like these watches back then. So it would be all with, you know, kilometers, but really, I didn't know what I was doing, but I'm like, okay, well, 90 minutes, how hard can that be?

I can run, you know, under for 40 minutes for a 10 K I'm sure I could do that for 90 minutes. I'm sure I can do half marathon for 90 minutes. That's what was in my head. Right. But I trained him up. And we're at the starting line and look, I'm running. I wasn't running a lot back then. I think I was running once or twice a week.

That's it for? Like 60 or 75 minutes? Not a lot. We're at the starting line. You're already thinking what's going to happen.  What's going to go on Todd. You're already getting yourself ready for disaster. Right? So anyways, we were at the starting line and I turned to him. He says, Todd, I feel like crap today.

I'm like, what? Yeah. I feel really bad. I'm sick. I'm stuffy. I can't do it. There's no way I'm in the condition and shape to run a 90 minute half marathon.  Go Todd, you run it and be proud. I'll be proud of it.  All right. Okay. I just lost my running partner.

The only reason why I signed up for this race is to run with him, to get him to a 90 minute half marathon. Look, I know what you're thinking.... Todd get on with it. I'm getting on with it, just give me a second. So I'm running, running, running, running. I feel really good. Right? I feel really good.

I don't have a lot of experience with the half marathon distance. I'm a pretty good 10 Km racer, but not half marathon. So I got to probably five or seven Km and guess what happened? My buddy, the stitch came back, came back. I'm like, Oh my gosh. Now this is a different thing compared to what I just told you, because I didn't know.

Back then, I did not know that I should switch the pattern on how I breathe. So I did this instead. I was getting into a whole thing about gratitude at that part of my life. And I think it's a wonderful for all of us to do that. Focus on being grateful for the things that we have. So I got this stitch in my side and immediately when something goes wrong in a race,

you go, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, you get all these negative thoughts. And I'm like, no, I'm not going to do that. So I went to that thought stopping exercise.... I am not going to do that. I'm going to focus on something else instead. And I focused on saying, Thank You. I kid you not.

I said, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Every time my foot hit the ground. And I'm wondering if, because I did that. It forced me to exhale on the opposite side too. I mean, I don't know. So there's two things that you can do. If you get a point of where you feel like absolute horrible,

go to gratitude, look around and be thankful for things you have say, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And before you know it it's gone and you know what, you know what was really cool about it? I finished the race in like 1:29, or 1:30, right on the nose who knew, who knew? I was so happy.

I was so happy. It was one of those really weird things that you get to a point in the race where you think it's disaster, it's all going to turn into crap. You had the stitch, but then you go to a place of gratitude and you stay relaxed and the stitch goes away. And then you, you meet your athletes goal.

It wasn't my goal. It was his goal. So when you are out running and you have a stitch.  Take those tips, and I think it's going to work for you. It works for me. Now I can run. I can run pretty fast. I can run a pretty far. I can run pretty long and generally I don't get stitches.

And if I do get a stitch, I focus on exhaling to the other side and the stitch eventually goes away. This is not a cure for them. Like they still come. Right. But it's a way to get rid of them so that you can finish the race and continue on what you're doing. This video was all about run breathing and what to do when you get a stitch.

Hey, thank you for watching. I hope you learned a thing or two and I'll see you in the next video. Bye. Bye.