Breathing 101- Part 3

Part 3 of a 3 part series on BREATHING!

Decrease stress, improve energy, and alleviate back and neck pain by IMPROVING YOUR BREATH

Part 3 discusses how to put this information in to practice during movement and other exercise!

Now that you have an understanding of the importance of improving and maintaining a healthy full breath as well as some tools to improve it let’s talk about what to do during the day and during other activities and exercise.

During the day try to breath with your mouth closed this will be helpful in maintaining the mobility of the ribcage, especially reinforcing the daily exercises.

Dirgha pranayama- “complete breath”. Use this 3D practice to mobilize the rib cage and to provide stability and control and maintain alignment during movement.

While exercising use the 3D breath as a way to maintain posture alignment and stability. If you are unable to feel a full 3D breath it is likely that your are not in great alignment or straining. Recheck your alignment by exhaling completely and softening your sternum, allowing the inhale breath to rise on its own and direct it to fill the back sides of your ribcage as if you are filling up your kidneys with air, like balloons.

If you are working on a movement that requires spinal extension, match this movement with the inhale. If you are performing a movement that requires spine flexion match this movement with an exhalation.

If you find that you are excessively extending your spine during a movement and want to control that, use an exhale breathe to counter the extension movement, and vice versa for flexion.

During aerobic exercise and high intensity training, work to perform with the mouth closed as long and as much as possible.

Changing you breathing is such a powerful tool! Here are a couple experiences from my athletes:

An NFL athlete just started incorporating nasal irrigation as part of his routine and with just 2-3 times per week he noticed a significant difference in his aerobic capacity and recovery during his football practice after only 2 weeks.

An elite track and field athlete who had significant back pain found that they could completely eliminate pain and stiffness in their back by performing the side lying franklin ball mobility exercise.

There is so much to learn about breathing and the benefits and ways to apply it. It can easily be an overwhelming topic, but I hope this series made it a little more simple and provided you an easy way to start implementing breath work in to your day!

In case you missed part 1 and 2 of the 3 part series:

Part 1 is an introduction to breathing, assessing your starting point and 2 simple things to start practicing your breathing.

Part 2 is learning to interpret the assessment and 4 simple breathing exercises to improve 3D thoracic mobility and breathing.