Breath Training Along the Full Movement Spectrum

Part III

Breathing for Mobility

Continuing Along the Spectrum of Movement

The Human Body moves. I’ve introduced many of you to a concept I call the Full Spectrum of Movement. This spectrum considers all the movement the Human Body makes. On one end, there are the very small, unnoticeable movements of your cells, neurons, synapses, microbiome of your gut, thinking/feeling/making choices…the other end includes the larger functional movements we know well like squat, hinge, push, pull press, jump, walk, rotate, etc.

We can consider breath somewhere near the beginning of the spectrum. As I stated in the last part, breathing is an involuntary motor response, that can be made conscious, either using it to down-regulate (calm), up-regulate (increase energy) or restore your energy to homeostasis. When we use the Stamina app (Bridget), we are attempting to bring homeostasis, while assessing our energy + breathing muscles.

If we move along the Spectrum of Movement, we can understand breath as a way to access more movement like mobility of our joints/muscles. When we focus our awareness on certain regions of the body, we begin to notice how much access we have to the muscles/skeletal structures in the region. This is where we use Breath to mobilize key areas of our “Stack”: the ribcage + the pelvis.

Breathing for Mobility

A lot of times an immobile pelvis and/or immobile ribcage will result in disordered breathing (and vice-versa!). Mainly this happens as the inability for the thoracic diaphragm and the pelvic diaphragm (muscles) being unable to coordinate. In Phase 2 or 3 of your program, all of us will begin to see breathing exercises used to aide in more thoracolumbar spine + pelvic mobility. These are the areas where we see chronic pain most often. Having a healthy, mobile spine + pelvis are essential for performing any kind of movement the human body does…including breathing. A lack of mobility in any region can help inform better awareness of: shoulder, hip, knee, neck, pelvic floor dysfunction, dysregulated nervous system (!), which then helps inform what needs more attention in regard to training protocols or core support.

Take Note:

Mentally make an ‘x’ on the spots where pain/discomfort lives in your body. Then, make an ‘o’ on the spots where your body feels mobile and strong.

Understanding that breathing happens as a coordination of muscles, bones/cartilage and your lungs themselves, in the round, can help with this next bit of information…

We see breathing dysfunction happen most when these things occur (with prolonged frequency):

Sitting a lot

Posturally you get fixed in a crappy position, which has your pelvis stationary in posterior tilt (assuming you sit without much postural awareness or an ergonomic seat). This prolonged, dysfuctional posturing will wreak havoc on your pelvic floor muscles, your abdominals, your hip joints (since the femur gets ‘stuck’ in a certain spot) and your shoulder joint(s) from forward slouching towards a keyboard/screen. When this accumulation of poor posture happens, it causes a disruption in your ability to breath well.

“Front-facing”

This one affects a lot of us. We tend to be frontal beings. We move forward, we can see the front of our body, so we become oriented that way. Especially with our breathing. We pay little attention to our sides + back when we breathe. So, what ends up happening is our belly pushes out and in + the shoulders lift up + down as we breathe. Another way we ‘posture frontally’ is we rarely rotate/twist our trunk or side bend. “The Core” is a 3-dimensional system — meant to move you in all directions. This is a situation where “if you don’t use it, you lose it” happens. We should mobilize our trunk/pelvis with breath + with a variety of movement.

Pelvic Floor Dysfunction

Fellas, don’t tune out. You have a pelvic floor, you have most of the muscles associated with the pelvis, so this ultimately affects you, too, but no, I realize you will never get pregnant. That said, when the body does grow a baby, the abdominal wall will separate to accommodate the size (diastisis recti). With many women, this never fully heals postpartum + causes a significant issue with core functions like breathing, urinary function, hip or lumbar pain. We also see pelvic floor dysfunction in the obese population because of prolonged stress/weight on the pelvis and with any kind of surgery where the abdominal wall has been entered. Targeted core strengthening, along with mobility training + breathing exercises can be very helpful here.

Mobility with Breath Training

Using targeted breathing alongside small, mobilizing exercises of the top, middle and bottom of the spine are essential modalities to restore your core — which then, will restore the larger movements of your body like: bend, lift, push, pull, rotate, walk.

In Part IV, we will understand how to use Breath beyond the “small movements” to increase Strength Gains in the larger movements of the body.