{"id":643441,"date":"2026-05-01T20:16:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T20:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/643441\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T20:16:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T20:16:21","slug":"bobby-witt-jr-and-the-surprising-power-of-one-deep-breath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/643441\/","title":{"rendered":"Bobby Witt Jr. and the surprising power of one deep breath"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peak newsletter\u00a0| A version of this story first appeared in\u00a0The Athletic\u2019s\u00a0weekly newsletter covering the mental side of sports.\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to receive the Peak newsletter directly in your inbox.<\/p>\n

Before every pitch, Bobby Witt Jr. repeats the same routine. He steps out of the batter\u2019s box, grips his bat, looks at it and takes a big deep breath.<\/p>\n

Witt is the 25-year-old star shortstop of the Kansas City Royals and one of the most exciting players in baseball<\/a>. As a Kansas Citian, I\u2019ve watched Witt perform this routine hundreds of times, but only recently did I think to ask this question:<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the benefit of a single deep breath? The answer surprised me.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Witt developed his routine when he was a freshman at Colleyville High School in Texas.<\/p>\n

Brian Cain, a mental performance coach, helped him develop the steps he still uses to this day<\/a>: find a focal point on his bat, take a deep breath, say something positive.<\/p>\n

But the power of that single deep breath clicked for Witt in 2018.<\/p>\n

That summer, Witt participated in a high school home run derby. The event was held at National Park, home of MLB\u2019s Washington Nationals, and featured some of the best young hitters in the country.<\/p>\n

Witt was certainly one of them. The son of a major-league pitcher, Witt possessed a rare combination of speed, power and athleticism that already had him pegged as a future top pick. But that night, he was just a nervous 18-year-old.<\/p>\n

There were 40,000 people inside the stadium, including baseball\u2019s biggest stars: Aaron Judge, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper. Witt could feel their eyes on him as he walked up to the plate. His legs felt as if they \u201cwere going to fall out beneath me,\u201d he said on Cain\u2019s podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And then he took a deep breath.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust right there, it cleared my mind,\u201d he said, and completely shifted his thoughts from the pressure of the environment to the familiarity of the task: All right. You\u2019re back here in the box. It\u2019s just like you\u2019re hitting BP in the cage. Here we go.<\/p>\n

Witt won the home run derby that night and realized the power of a single breath to change an outcome.<\/p>\n

Witt is not alone. LeBron James has done it during timeouts<\/a>. Scottie Scheffler has done it during big golf tournaments. An NFL player did it on the field in the Super Bowl<\/a>. Some pro teams use an app to show their players the effect deep breathing has on their heart rate.<\/p>\n

As Peak\u2019s Rustin Dodd wrote last year, the science is clear<\/a>: Regular deep breathing (or breath work) can reduce anxiety, blood pressure and heart rate while improving mental health. Researchers have also found that a single five-minute session of deep, slow breathing can be beneficial.<\/p>\n

But what about a single deep breath?<\/p>\n

Sylvain Laborde can trace his initial interest in breathwork back to his asthma, which forced him to drop out of sports. Now a professor and researcher at the German Sport University Cologne, Laborde has spent the last two decades trying to understand and explain the power of breathing techniques.<\/p>\n

Yes, those techniques could often help people relax, but he realized that was only a part of the benefits. So he and three other experts wrote a book, \u201cHeart Rate Variability: Science and Strategies for Peak Performance,\u201d that explores the different benefits of breathing.<\/p>\n

One of their takeaways: Breathing not only impacts our autonomic nervous system, but the kind of breath we take impacts it in different ways.<\/p>\n

By measuring heart activity, Laborde and his team found that deep exhalation triggered the parasympathetic nervous system, which acts as the brake pedal in a car. It\u2019s the reason why our heart rate slows and our anxiety reduces when we let out a long breath.<\/p>\n

But deep inhalation triggers the sympathetic nervous system, or the gas pedal. Laborde\u2019s team found \u2014 and recent neuroscience backed it up \u2014 that deep inhalation sharpens our concentration and makes us more alert.<\/p>\n

Laborde said there was an easy test people could do at home. Take two fingers and put them on your pulse. Take a really deep, exaggerated inhale. And then take a really deep, exaggerated exhale.<\/p>\n

Each time you inhale, you should notice your heart beats faster. And each time you exhale, your heart should beat slower.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Laborde noticed when I sent him a clip of Witt\u2019s routine: Witt inhales deeply. He doesn\u2019t let out a long, slow exhale like you might expect. He just takes a really sharp inhale, almost like he\u2019s sucking in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe inhalation was stronger and longer, which made me think: Perhaps he uses this unconsciously to activate himself and to focus,\u201d Laborde said.<\/p>\n

As I watched the Royals the other night, Rex Hudler, the team\u2019s television analyst, brought up Witt\u2019s breathing routine. Hudler played 13 years in the majors, but never quite lived up to his promise as a first-round pick.<\/p>\n

As he talked about Witt\u2019s breathing, Hudler said: \u201cI wish I would have learned that when I was a player. It would have helped.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you want to read more about Witt\u2019s routine, Elise Devlin tried out parts of it for a week. Her takeaway? Witt has next-level discipline<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peak newsletter\u00a0| A version of this story first appeared in\u00a0The Athletic\u2019s\u00a0weekly newsletter covering the mental side of sports.\u00a0Sign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,5261,591,17796,85],"class_list":["post-643441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-mlb","tag-peak","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}