Why The Breath Work You Learned In Pilates Isn’t Helping You Get Stronger (Or Fixing Your Back Pain…)
Breathing is supposed to be one of those natural things we don’t have to think about, right?
Right…ish. It’s common for us to forget to breathe altogether- or get stuck in a pattern of breathing that negatively impacts the core system. It’s easy to do with even the slightest bit of stress- a cruel irony, considering harnessing our breath is one of the quickest ways to calm the body and mind. Most people get caught in either shallow breathing or belly breathing.
“Shallow breathing” is pretty obvious to spot- you see a lot of shoulder shrugging, and they are usually small short sips of air. When you get stuck in shallow breathing, you rely on the secondary respiration muscles, the scalenes and the sternocleidomastoid, shorten and add tension to the neck. Most fitpros have the best intentions when they cue belly breathing but by isolating movement to the belly, they fails to encourage the necessary expansion around the rib cage to mobilize the thoracic spine (the tightest part of your back). With strict belly breathing, you’re locking your ribcage down and trying to send breath only into the low belly, creating tightness and tension in the mid back which then eventually becomes pain.
So...how SHOULD I take a breath?
The perfect functional breath is when the diaphragm muscle drops down into the trunk (I envision a jellyfish on the down action of its undulating swim motion) on the inhale, cueing your pelvic floor to relax, and then as you exhale, you need to force the air back out of your body, so the pelvic floor engages, the deep core engages, and the diaphragm jellyfishes (this is a verb now, get into it) back up. As this inhale happens, the lungs and the diaphragm expand in all directions (not just the front!! Not just the sides!! TO THE BACK TOO. Those ribs attach to the front AND the back!!)
The movement created when the ribs flare to accommodate this 3D expansion keeps the mid back juicy and pliable, coordinating the dropping down of the diaphragm and the total release of the PFM allows for them to be functionally strong and supple. We run into trouble when we take small shallow, or front body only breaths. This stops movement of the back ribs expanding, and the surround muscles get stiff and tight. When you run into tension there, it’s easy to get caught in reverse breathing (or, squeezing and tensing the pelvic floor muscles on the INHALE when the diaphragm is SUPPOSED to cue it to relax, and attempting to relax the pelvic floor muscles on the exhale when the core is contracting.
Conclusion
Um, ok. So, how do I make sure I’m getting 3D expansion??
Let’s start with the rib movement: bring your hands to the sides of your ribs fingers front, thumbs wrapped around back- as you inhale feel the ribs expand wide into your hands, puffing out the front and REALLY FOCUS on the puffing out the back into those thumbs as well. This might take a few tries if your back is super tight and you’ve been locked in incorrect breathing for awhile. I’m also big fan of taking a child’s pose, and directing all the breath into the back body so much that I feel the back ribs rising and falling the way we are used to seeing our chest rise and fall when we are laying on our backs.
Got it? Cool. Moving on- bring one hand to the low belly and one hand to the chest- as you inhale allow BOTH the low belly and the chest to rise under your hands, filling with air.
Easy. Now, see if you can maintain the 3d rib expansion (breath to the front, sides and back of the ribs) while getting some breath into the low belly still too. The idea is to evenly distribute breath to the entire rib cage (which I’ll say again for good luck, INCLUDES the back body!)
Almost there! As you inhale, you’re filling up the ribs in all directions, filling up the low belly enough that there is some visible movement and no gripping in the abs, AND visualizing that little jellyfish action of your diaphragm dropping down into your pelvic floor as you send the air low into the belly. Relax your pelvic floor (the feeling like when you’re letting go to pee (but don’t pee on your yoga mat please) as all this air is entering the body.
Now for the exhale! Engage and lift you pelvic floor (like the squeeze of a kegel but with a pulling up sensation) wrap the waist in tightly like a corset, and knit the ribs back together and slide them down towards center as the lungs deflate and the jellyfishing of the diaphragm boings back up.
Conclusion
Learning to breathe functionally not only loosens up tension in the mid back to relieve back pain, but by creating movement in every body segment-- ie the chest the ribs front side and back, the stomach and the pelvic floor, you are releasing the paraspinals and obliques, the mid back, and allowing the pelvic floor to get out of a constantly gripped (weak) state which will increase your core strength a million fold. This is relevant for EVERYONE but is particularly life changing for new moms who just had a baby pressing down on the pelvic floor for 9 months not to mention the deep core strengthening that ensues from proper breath technique encourages the healing of the ab separation that happens during pregnancy, diastasis recti.
Did I lose you at jellyfishing as a verb?
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