Did you forget how to breathe?
Believe it or not, there is a proper way to breathe. Most of the patients we see in our Boulder Chiropractic office have forgotten how to perform a proper breath. Lets review the proper technique and a few exercises that will help you regain that ability!
Am I doing this right?
To check in on your breathing, in a sitting position or laying face up, place one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly. As you inhale, which hand is moving more? Keep reading to find out the correct way to do it.
Why Does This Matter?
What happens if I breathe “the wrong way”? I still manage to breathe well enough to stay alive.
Symptoms of Improper Breathing
Chronically tight neck and upper shoulders, shoulder pain, headache, higher respiration rate, higher heart rate, frequent lower back pain, sub-optimal aerobic exercise performance, feeling out of breath more quickly than others, high stress, digestive issues, etc.
The proper way to breathe is very simply the way nearly every baby breathes - with their belly. At the bottom of your rib cage you have a muscle that spans the entire circumference of your body - extending front to back, side to side. This muscle is called your diaphragm. The muscle has a few main purposes:
To help your lungs expand.
To help expel your air.
To provide core and trunk stability.
When you inhale, your diaphragm concentrically contracts, flattening to allow your lungs to expand and your lower rib cage to spread out in all directions. When you exhale, you eccentrically contract the diaphragm, forming a dome shape as it pushes up towards your head to help squeeze the air out of your lungs.
What does this mean for an athlete?
Any athlete trains both aerobically and anaerobically. Typical aerobic training is done below threshold and allows for efficient exchange of air in the lungs. Typical anaerobic training is done above threshold where we cannot rely on the efficient exchange of air in the lungs. What we’re after is the greatest aerobic efficiency.
Most of our patients are runners and triathletes. This group of people is highly concerned with a measure of air exchange called your VO2 max. This is a measure of the maximum volume of air uptake that can be delivered to your muscles during exercise to keep you going fast.
When you exercise, you typically begin to breathe at a higher rate in an attempt to get more oxygen in which is normal and useful. It is important to note, breathing more frequently or faster is not the same as breathing deeply with your diaphragm. Increasing rate will typically result in you using secondary muscles of neck and will shallow breathe into your chest. Too much of this will feel like you’re hyperventilating.
Maintaining a slower respiration rate, but with deeper breathing can help to increase tidal volume (the amount of air inhaled and exhaled with each cycle). If you are using the most volume of air capacity with deeper breathing you can have the most oxygen exchange at the alveoli in the lungs. The body will make adaptations to aerobic exercise creating more dense amounts of capillaries in the lungs - this is why your fitness goes up with regular training. If you are not using the most of your lung capacity, you are likely to not be reaching your vo2 potential.
Core Stability in Athletes
If your goal is to throw a ball harder, swing a bat or club faster, lift heavier weights, use more force with each running stride, etc you need to be able to transfer the power you generate to the moving arm or leg.
The diaphragm is a key player in generating intraabdominal pressure. When we look at the anatomy, we realize the core is a cylinder formed by the abdominals on the front, the lower back extensors and quadratus lumborum in the back, and the obliques on either side. The top of the cylinder is the diaphragm and the bottom is the pelvic floor. You need all of these muscles working together to stabilize the core and lumbar spine in any athlete for maximum efficiency.
Physiology of Deep Breathing
The body is controlled by two systems, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The parasympathetic system is responsible for most of the “rest and digest” systems. The opposite is the sympathetic nervous system, responsible for “fight or flight” type responses. When we control breathing with diaphragmatic breathing we help to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. Most of our society is constantly stimulating the sympathetic system in a few common ways: caffeine, stress, high intensity workouts, etc.
Using deep breathing we can positively counteract some of these processes (ie decrease heart rate and blood pressure, improve digestion, improve relaxation and sleep, etc).
Proper Belly Breathing Technique
The easiest way to properly breathe through your diaphragm is to breathe in through the nose (with tongue on the roof of the mouth) and out through the mouth, with pursed lips (as if you are blowing into a straw). Each time you inhale, you should feel expansion of your lower ribs in all directions. While inhaling, you should not feel your chest rising unless you’re inhaling to full capacity.
While performing any breathing activity, we want you to be in good posture. This means that your butt shouldn't be sticking out too far or your tail too far tucked under. You should be standing tall, chest out like you own the world. This is going to be sure that your diaphragm is mirroring your pelvic floor. If you think about the cylinder created in the core and both the top and bottom of the cylinder should be facing each other. If you are in poor posture the two will not be facing each other, making it challenging to breathe with your belly.
When you checked in earlier, was your belly hand moving more than your chest hand? If so, great. If your chest hand was moving, you are primarily using your secondary muscles - not your belly.
Every person can benefit from adding in a few breathing exercises to the routine. If you’re experiencing neck, shoulder, hip, or lower back pain perform an exercise daily for a while. If you’re an athlete, try incorporating a few of these into your warm up routine.
The Exercises
Croc Breathing:
Dead Bug:
90/90 Lift:
Sport Specific Application
As an athlete, we need to take these exercises one step further. We need to practice doing the exercise in an environment that is similar to how you’re performing so you can start to take the skill and apply it during training and competition.
Cycling - This is arguably the toughest position as your diaphragm and your pelvic floor are typically not facing each other, especially in a TT position. This becomes challenging to build the normal area needed for lung expansion. Practicing this will help you achieve this position when on aerobic rides ultimately leading to performance gains.
Running - Using your diaphragm while running can help keep heart rate lower and increase your core stability leading to increased power output to the ground - propelling you forward. Inhale with leg back, exhale through pursed lips as you bring the leg up.
Climbing and Overhead lifting - The difficulty in this position is again higher as your arms go overhead. The biggest challenge is keeping your rib cage down as your arm goes up. As a climber, overhead athlete (throwing, hitting in volleyball, etc), or overhead weight lifter (crossfit, snatch, overhead press, nearly any shoulder exercise) we need to keep the core engaged and rock solid as your arm moves. This allows for ultimate power transfer and shoulder health. Inhale through the nose, expand at the diaphragm, bring arm overhead as you exhale, bringing rib cage down as you tighten the core - be sure to pack the shoulder as you bring the arm overhead.
These exercises and sport specific adaptations are merely general outlines. If you’re experiencing difficulty using your diaphragm, experiencing pain, or having trouble stabilizing your core - make an appointment today to get pain relief now.