A gas mask on its own just seems like a collector’s item or a fine utilitarian piece of gear. Training on its own sounds like a good thing that encourages progress in a way that is challenging and rewarding. When you mix gas mask and training, you typically get people thinking about difficulty breathing, narrow vision, and absolute misery. This is a knee jerk reaction that unfortunately gets people to steer away from one of the best types of training that they could be getting exposed to.
TRAINING BENEFITS
Most people are not looking to apply for a Tier1 unit, which requires you to practically live in a gas mask during Counter Terrorism training. Neither do most people believe that having a gas mask handy in case of a gas attack is realistic. However, you will find a surplus gas mask useful when you do things like clean out your dryer vent tube. Despite the pandemic and how much people are obsessed with it, I doubt you will see someone taking their gas mask to the gym or the range. That said, there are actual benefits to training with a gas mask and getting good at functioning in one. And to be clear, I am talking about using a gas mask with the filter, not without. It is totally different and much easier to work in one without the filter.
First set of benefits are that you develop pulmonary robustness. Not all gas masks are created equal, but breathing through one is often compared to breathing through a straw. I found it to just be like breathing with something squeezing your face, but whatever. The point is that in order to overcome this strain on your pulmonary system, your body is going to have to adapt, but you will also have to meet it in the middle and learn how to handle your breaths of air efficiently. This will enhance your endurance and your Diaphragm will get a helluva workout as well.
The next benefit is that certain masks can challenge your visual perception. Masks that have separate holes for the eyes generally require you to retrain yourself to regain your depth perception and situational awareness. This can give you a renewed understanding for spatial awareness when you literally can’t see everything. You would be surprised at how freaked your mind can get when you don’t even have peripheral vision in certain visual quadrants. But all this is adaptable, and I guarantee you that it will teach you a lot about yourself and only make your body and mind sharper.
GETTING STARTED
To get started, you need to get a gas mask and get familiar with it. You need to understand how it goes on your face, where all the straps are, how to tighten the straps, how to attach a filter (If it uses a detachable one), where your exhale valve is and all the points of contact with your face. Then you need to clean the sucker inside and out in order to get any factory chemicals off so it doesn’t cause a rash or unnecessary irritation.
Next, you need to try on the mask and see how long you can stay in the mask with the filter on, before you get pain on your face. Once you get facial pain, see if it is from the eye holes and see if you cannot adjust the mask to make it sit right, and without pain. Sometimes there is just no good way to prevent pain, but perhaps it could be an issue with how tight the head straps are. Just remember that they need to be tight enough to hold a seal as you shake your head, but not too much more.
While you are trying on the mask, I recommend going around and doing normal daily chores like dishes, laundry, etc. This will give you a good idea about how the mask will behave as you move around and how it will challenge certain small things we usually don’t even consider. Your vision will adjust to the situation fairly quickly as you continue to expose yourself to tasks demanding adaptation, but breathing is going to be something else entirely.
GETTING A NEW PERSPECTIVE
Before doing anything physical, I recommend you sort out your visual limitations and adapt. This will prevent you from missing stair steps, bumping into things, miscalculating distance, etc. After you have a pretty solid idea of what it is generally like doing tasks with a gas mask and have a good perception of your surroundings, it is time to start getting your heartrate going and seeing what it is like for you to demand oxygen to fuel your muscles. I recommend staring with high repetition calisthenics like pushups, pullups, and even running in place. I personally find stairs to be a fast way to get my heart rate up. Either way, the point is to try and perform some physical activity that will get your heartrate going so you can get exposure to the controlled breathing part of having a gas mask.
CONTROL YOUR BREATHING
As your heartrate goes up, you are going to need more oxygen to fuel your muscles. A gas mask can make you feel like you are not getting enough from normal breathing techniques. This is why you have to exercise discipline and use breathing as a tool for performance, much like at the gym.
When I was in the military, there was zero help with how to function in a gas mask, as I am describing to you in this article. This answers why many people struggle so much in them, but breathing in a mask is not too complicated. When under physical stress we draw short deep breaths, sucking in as much air as we can, as fast as we can. For a gas mask, it is a bit more like training at the gym in that air is to be used when you need it, and you need to use it all efficiently.
ACTIVE BREATH CONTROL
There are a few techniques that I have developed for breathing with a gas mask on and the first ones I am going to go over are the active breathing techniques. These will be used during physical activity to keep the body and brain sufficiently oxygenated, but they vary based on the activity being conducted.
First technique is a slow deep breath with a 2 second hold before exhaling. The whole time involved from the start of the inhale until the exhale is about 5-6 seconds. There is no need to pause after the exhale, so feel free to just repeat this cycle. This is perfect for endurance jogging or walking with a load. Most people don’t realize that it takes a moment for us to process all the oxygen in our lungs, and therefore the holding of that deep breath is vital.
The next technique is a fast shallow breath with a 1 second hold before the exhale. This is good for bursting movements such as sprinting, jumping, or anything that is being done fast for a relatively short duration. Again, you will notice that you are to hold onto the air you just got, even if it is for a “one Mississippi” count.
The last active technique I will discuss is the holding technique. This is literally where you get a full lung of air and just hold it for as long as possible like a swimmer. This actually works pretty well for short duration sprints and moving fast with heavy loads. The key is to not hold your breath too long, but I have been successful with doing 10 second holds at a time. If I am really tuckered out, I will probably be down to 5 seconds. The beauty of this technique is it is simple but effective. You just have to suck in as much as possible and just hold it for as long as the air feels useful. Hell, I have used this technique for just jogging as well. I personally like this technique with or without a mask. You will notice that it also helps with faster recovery of your cardiovascular system if you utilize this technique during activity. You are just forcing your body to use EVERY bit of oxygen it can out of your lungs. You’d be surprised how much oxygen we waste in normal breathing.
RECOVERY BREATHING
Who wants to use a straw to try and get air after strenuous activity? Yeah, I thought not, but that is how it can feel when you are not accustomed to being active with a breathing filter on. Good news is that there is a technique that I developed that incorporates two of the previously mentioned techniques. I use this to regulate my breathing after strenuous activity so I can be ready to do it all over again as soon as possible.
The technique I use is two fast shallow breaths with a 1 second’s hold, then one slow deep breath with a 2 second hold, and then a 2 second pause before repeating the process. I do this over and over until I am recovered. I call this ‘triangle breathing’. Try to visualize moving along a triangle, starting from the bottom left side. The first part of fast breathing is the part going up to the top. When you transition to the long deep breath, you start going down the other side. The pause after the exhale is the bottom part of the triangle. It will help you if you visualize traveling in this manner around a triangle while you are recovering. Just my advice.
GET MOVING
Once you feel pretty confident about your breathing and are ready to test out some fast-paced work, feel free. Just remember that this type of training requires you to be mindful of the fact that you are losing spatial awareness and normal breathing. Everything you do fast may set off alarms in your brain saying “You aren’t getting enough air.” Just remember that this is pretty normal for your brain to dramatize a change in order to get you to analyze and determine if it is actually a threat to your life. With plenty of proper practice and good old grit, you will notice the results almost immediately when you take the mask off. The air will be much easier to breathe and your endurance with uninhibited breathing will be greater. You will have learned some valuable methods of using the air you breathe in a way that helps you with or without a mask. Only good things come to those who have the guts to push themselves.
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