Expand Your Lungs
 

  Hockey players will typically condition their bodies, and the rare one will condition their mind as well, but few will turn their attention to something else of vital importance: their breath.

  Stand or sit up straight and fold your hands across your stomach. When you do this exercise, you should feel your hands rise and fall with your breath. If your chest rises and falls, you're breathing in your chest, and that's not going to be anywhere near as effective at maximizing your breath. When your stomach moves in and out while you breathe, that means your diaphragm is moving up and down which will give your lungs more room to expand. Since the amount of power and energy you can contain in your lungs directly affects how much power and energy you can put on the ice.
You exhale, dump out the waste and start again. Typically, during normal breathing, we use 10 percent to 15 percent of our lungs, leaving scores of alveoli untouched. Even during exercise, when we need more oxygen, we tend to get it by breathing faster--huffing and puffing

  The purpose is to open and close your lungs fully to start to increase the amount of oxygen you can carry. Breath like this several times in a row, and do it three times a day (once when you wake up, once at lunch, and once before you go to bed) for at least two weeks and see if you notice an increase in your lung capacity and performance.

  Another option to test immediate results, is to time yourself skating around a rink at full speed, then practice this breathing exercise for about 5 minutes on the bench, then time yourself skating around the rink again. You'll probably notice your time increase between runs. In fact, if you practice this exercise right after exertion, you'll also benefit from a faster recovery time, and how's that for a handy tip?

The secret to fuller, more fruitful breathing is training your lungs: forging stronger breathing habits and conditioning your respiratory muscles to make pulling in those extra liters easier.

1. Blow it out. Encourage deeper inhalations by concentrating on full, strong exhalations that fully expel carbon dioxide from your lungs, says world-class triathlete and trainer Eric Harr. "Blow out your breath to a count of 3, and inhale to a count of 2.
   As you do it more frequently, it will become easier and more natural."
2. Belly breathe. Concentrate on breathing deep into your body, pushing the abdominal part of your lungs down and out. Your abs should expand as much if not more than your chest, says Harr.
3. Wider is better. Your body position affects how much air you can easily take in. "When you're stretched out, like on a road bike, you have a better distribution of oxygen across your lungs," says Davenport. Likewise, when your chest is open, it can more easily expand to let air in, says Harr. "I recommend a wide bar, 2cm wider than you'd normally ride, to help open the lungs."
4. Synchronize your breathing. "You can achieve a small increase in performance by synchronizing your breathing to your pedal stroke," says Davenport. Get into a cadence where you're exhaling at the top of your pedal strokes, alternating legs, pushing out your air to the rhythm of your effort. You're less likely to take incomplete breaths, and your effort will feel more even.