Nasal breathing after exercise helps footballers calm down faster because it slows breathing and shifts the nervous system towards rest. In Watso et al. (2023, PMID 37867476), the parasympathetic share of HRV at rest was 59% with nasal and 52% with mouth breathing. Sprints lose no power through the mouth. Returning to the nose is a learned skill.
Key takeaways
- The nose slows your breathing. At the same power output, nasal breathing lowers breathing rate and ventilation (Rappelt 2023, Eser 2024).
- The nose supports calming down. At rest, nasal breathing increased the parasympathetic share of HRV (59% vs 52%) and lowered diastolic blood pressure (Watso 2023).
- After a sprint, muscle reoxygenates faster. After a 30-second Wingate test, muscle reoxygenation was almost twice as fast with nasal breathing (0.45 vs 0.23 %/s), and the effort was rated as easier (Lévénez 2025, 49 participants).
- In a sprint, breathing route does not change power. That is the finding of 4 studies (Recinto 2017, Meir 2014, Lévénez 2025, Lörinczi 2024).
- It is a skill. At first, nasal breathing during exercise feels less comfortable. People who trained it kept their full performance (Rappelt 2023, Dallam 2018).
What is nasal breathing in sport and why does it matter for footballers?
Nasal breathing in sport means breathing in and out through the nose, mouth closed, during and after exercise. It matters for footballers because a match is a series of sprints, pressing and short moments off the ball. A player who settles their breathing faster in those moments is ready for the next action sooner.
Most people switch to the mouth during exercise. In an observation of 917 runners in a 10 km race, only 3 (0.3%) breathed through the nose alone (Niinimaa 1983). So nasal breathing during exercise is not a reflex but a skill. We explain why breathing gives footballers an edge in breathing training in football and VO₂max.
Does nasal breathing slow your breathing during exercise?
Yes. At the same power output, nasal breathing lowers breathing rate and the volume of air moved through the lungs.
In Rappelt et al. (2023), 19 trained participants cycled for 60 minutes, once nose-only and once with nose and mouth. Power was practically identical (144.7 vs 147.0 W). With nose-only breathing, breathing rate, total ventilation, oxygen uptake, CO₂ output and blood lactate at the end of the session were all lower.
Eser et al. (2024) found the same pattern during moderate exercise: nasal breathing lowered breathing rate and ventilation in every group studied, including young, healthy people. The nose works like a built-in brake that keeps your breathing from running away. We cover nasal breathing in the context of CO₂ tolerance and the Bohr effect in CO₂ tolerance in football.
Does nasal breathing help you calm down?
Yes, research suggests that nasal breathing supports a calmer nervous system. That calm is driven by the parasympathetic system, the part of the nervous system that switches on rest and recovery. One way to measure its activity is heart rate variability (HRV). More on the physiology of breathing in our breathing science section.
Watso et al. (2023) compared nasal and mouth breathing in 20 young adults at rest. With nasal breathing:
- the parasympathetic share of HRV was higher (59% vs 52%),
- diastolic blood pressure was lower (68 vs 72 mmHg).
“These data suggest that nasal compared with oral breathing (…) increases parasympathetic contributions to heart rate variability.”
Watso et al., American Journal of Physiology (2023)
The second factor is breathing pace. A meta-analysis by Laborde et al. (2022) covering 223 studies showed that slow breathing increases parasympathetic activity during a session, immediately after it and after several weeks of training. The nose slows breathing, and slow breathing supports calming down. We describe the role of CO₂ in this process in our guide CO₂ tolerance and athletic performance. For how nasal and diaphragmatic breathing work together, see diaphragmatic breathing for athletes.
What happens to your muscles after a sprint with nasal breathing?
After maximal effort, muscle reoxygenates faster and slightly more fully (75.2% vs 73.1%) with nasal breathing than with mouth breathing. That is the finding of Lévénez et al. (2025) in 49 participants who completed a 30-second Wingate test once breathing through the nose and once through the mouth.
| Measure | Nose | Mouth |
|---|---|---|
| Mean power | no difference | no difference |
| Muscle reoxygenation rate after exercise | 0.45 %/s | 0.23 %/s |
| Muscle reoxygenation level | 75.2% | 73.1% |
| Perceived exertion (Borg scale) | 8.0 | 9.0 |
The same power, a lighter sense of effort and an almost twice as fast return of the muscle to balance. That is exactly what a player is looking for in the break between actions.
Does slow breathing after exercise speed up recovery in athletes?
Two studies show that slow breathing work after exercise has a measurable effect in athletes. Neither compared nose with mouth; both are about breathing pace.
- In 18 strength-trained men, slow breathing between sets of squats produced a larger drop in heart rate after the 2nd and 3rd sets than normal breathing, with no loss of power (Buxton 2024).
- In 24 footballers, 10 sessions of breathing training with HRV biofeedback sped up HRV recovery during a 5-minute recovery period after a fitness test (Yılmaz 2025).
Calm, slow breathing after exercise is a skill you can train, and it translates into the body settling down faster.
Do you need to breathe through your nose in a sprint?
No. In short, maximal efforts, breathing route did not change performance in any of four studies:
- a Wingate test in 9 participants (Recinto 2017) and in 49 participants (Lévénez 2025),
- shuttle runs in 10 men (Meir 2014),
- bench press to failure in 107 participants (Lörinczi 2024).
In a sprint, a duel or a press, the mouth is the body’s natural response. The edge starts after the action: in how quickly the player moves from mouth breathing back to calm nasal breathing. How to check your CO₂ tolerance is covered in our guide Control Pause (BOLT score): how to measure it.
Does nasal breathing affect the brain?
Nasal breathing is linked to the rhythm of brain areas involved in emotion and memory. Zelano et al. (2016) showed that nasal breathing synchronises activity in the amygdala and hippocampus, and that this rhythm weakens with mouth breathing.
This study used recordings from inside the brain in patients at rest, so we do not transfer it directly to the pitch. It does show that the breathing route matters for more than the lungs.
Why do you have to learn nasal breathing during exercise?
Because at first it is uncomfortable, and the body switches to the mouth by reflex. In Rappelt et al. (2023), discomfort with nose-only breathing was slightly higher, although perceived exertion did not differ. The point at which people switch from nose to mouth is highly individual and is linked to the perceived effort of breathing (Niinimaa 1980).
Training changes this. Runners who trained with nasal breathing over an extended period reached the same VO₂max breathing through the nose as through the mouth, with more economical breathing (Dallam 2018). After 4 weeks of breathing exercises, breath-hold time increased by 11.7 s, compared with 1.9 s in the control group (Wolff 2025).
That is why at AirFlow Performance we treat nasal breathing like any other part of preparation: we measure it, practise it and gradually carry it over from the gym to the pitch. That is how our three-stage breathing training programme works. What we measured in a 7-week pilot at Lech Poznań is on our results page.
Where does the evidence end?
Research on nasal breathing is mostly small samples and single lab sessions. There are no studies yet that measure nasal breathing between repeated sprints in footballers. That is why we say the nose helps and supports calming down, not that it guarantees more sprints.
FAQ
Does nasal breathing help you calm down faster after exercise? Research suggests that it does, although most of the evidence comes from small studies. Nasal breathing slows your breathing, and slow breathing increases parasympathetic activity. In a direct comparison at rest, the parasympathetic share of HRV was higher with nasal than with mouth breathing (59% vs 52%, Watso 2023).
Should a football (soccer) player breathe through the nose during a sprint? They do not have to. In four studies of short, maximal efforts, breathing route did not change power or time. Nasal breathing matters most after the action, when the body is returning to balance. In a sprint, a duel or a press, the mouth is the body’s natural response. The edge lies in how quickly the player moves back to calm nasal breathing.
Does nasal breathing speed up muscle recovery? In a study of 49 participants, muscle reoxygenated almost twice as fast after a 30-second sprint with nasal breathing as with mouth breathing (0.45 vs 0.23 %/s, Lévénez 2025). This is a single study with a single sprint, so treat it as a promising signal rather than a final answer for football.
Why is nasal breathing during exercise hard at first? Because most people are used to breathing through the mouth during exercise. At first, discomfort with nasal breathing is slightly higher, and the body switches to the mouth by reflex. People who trained nasal breathing over time kept their full performance with it, which is why we treat it as a skill to practise.
Does breathing training replace fitness training? No. Breathing training complements physical preparation. It helps you make better use of the breaks between actions and settle down faster. At AirFlow Performance we measure nasal breathing, practise it and gradually carry it over from the gym to the pitch, alongside the work a player already does on the pitch and in the gym.
About AirFlow Performance
AirFlow Performance runs breathing training for footballers. We ran a 7-week breathing training pilot at Lech Poznań, and today we also work one-to-one with individual players.
Published: 12 October 2026
Want to check how you breathe after exercise? Get in touch with AirFlow Performance
Are you part of a club or academy staff? Book a call about implementation
Sources
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