What is Lung Capacity?
To start with, let's get a quick basic understanding of what lung capacity is. Lung capacity is the amount of Oxygen your lungs can hold. Pretty simple? That is the baseline. It is not how much you breath in (some Oxygen stays in the lungs). If you want to deep dive into all of the different lung volumes of air go here. We are going to talk about how to increase your lung capacity, so it isn't necessary to understand all of the science and different volumes of air inhaled and exhaled. The average adult has a maximum lung capacity of about 6L. It is rare to use the entire lung capacity. But we can learn to use more than we currently do.
Why Should I Care About Lung Capacity?
Our lung capacity strongly relates to our life span, and it decreases as we age. Starting in our 20's we start to demonstrate decreases in lung capacity. If we use our lungs and exercise regularly we can stem these changes and slow them down. However, it is inevitable that it will decrease.
Lung capacity can be severely affected by many things such as asthma, COPD, inhilation of tar and other chemicals, and (if you see all the TV commercials) asbestos. Some of these things we can't do much about, but we can take some time, no matter what, to increase our ability to use our 6L of total lung volume.
What Can I do to Improve Lung Capacity?
This question has many answers, and will depend on what your current activity level is. If you are a high level endurance athlete, you may be at your peak lung capacity. If you sit at a desk all day (maybe more sore due to COVID-19) you may be losing your ability to use your lung capacity. Below is a list of some exercises, that are very basic, that you can do to begin reversing the effects of aging on your lungs.
Diaphragmatic Breathing
Diaphragmatic Breathing in Sitting
Breathing Recovery Exercise
If you made it this far, we will also recommend adding an exercise regimen at least 2 days, but preferably 5 days, per week. This exercise regimen can be anything that gets the heart and lungs moving; Walking, Running, Swimming, Cycling, Barre Classes, Orange Theory, Yoga, CrossFit, Boot Camp, etc.
Pick something that you like. Ideally it will include both resistance training and cardiovascular training, but it is more important that you like it and stick with it.
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