The secret to weight loss, fitness, and health lies in the most basic and most overlooked aspect of your life: how you breathe It's shocking, but one of the biggest obstacles to your health and fitness is a rarely identified problem: chronic overbreathing. We can breathe two to three times more air than required without even knowing it (mouth breathing is a big culprit), and chronic overbreathing leads to loss of health and poor fitness and contributes to problems such as anxiety, asthma, fatigue, insomnia, heart problems, and even obesity. Within minutes you can improve the amount of oxygen delivered to active muscles and organs, including your heart and brain, by applying simple changes to how you breathe. If you're a serious athlete wanting to attain an edge, you'll gain heightened sports performance, with improvements to aerobic and anaerobic capacity and the ability to enter the zone at will. If you're in poor health or physical condition, you can help the body to help itself with increased energy levels, easier breathing, and more enjoyment during physical exercise. Using the techniques in this book, even the most out-of-shape person (including those with chronic respiratory conditions such as asthma) can climb stairs, run after a bus, or play soccer with the kids with more breathing comfort. For the past thirteen years, Patrick McKeown has trained more than five thousand people to achieve more with less. By following the simple, programmatic breathing exercises in The Oxygen Advantage, you'll be able to: * Maximize the benefits of any exercise or fitness program * Discover your actual fitness level and track your progress * Reduce your breathlessness during exercise * Improve your VO2 max and running economy * Simulate high-altitude training for heightened athletic performance * Improve your cardiovascular health * Eliminate asthma symptoms * Increase your concentration * Lose weight easily and maintain the weight loss These scientifically validated breathing exercises have the potential to drastically improve your current performance level, whether you're a recovering couch potato or an Ironman Triathlon champion.