Diaphragmatic Breathing, what is it?

In my opinion, breathing is often overlooked and taken for granted. The anatomy of breathing is very simple but often dysfunctional. Your diaphragm is a big dome shaped muscle that is attached to the bottom of your rib cage, and separates the chest from the abdomen. When we take a breath in, the diaphragm lowers in the chest which allows the lungs to expand, when we exhale the diaphragm relaxes as the air is pushed out of the lungs.

We call this the 90/90 position. Hips and knees are both at 90 degrees. This position is a great starting point to learn to breath with your belly.

Seems very simple but why and how does the dysfunction happen? The leading theory of why breathing becomes dysfunctional is due to social “norms” and vanity. When we suck in our stomachs it's almost impossible to breathe with your diaphragm. Often people recruit their chest muscles to lift their rib cage to create space for the lungs to expand. This common dysfunction can lead to an over development of chest and neck muscles simultaneously creating a weakness in the low back musculature.

One of the interesting things is we are all born phenomenal belly breathers. If you have kids remember when they were young all babies have big bellies, part of that is because of what they eat, the other reason is they are rock star belly breathers. 

We start with diaphragmatic breathing retraining on day one in our office because whether you have a neck complaint or a low back complaint belly breathing will be beneficial. Which sounds weird, why do I need to work on breathing if my neck hurts!? If you have had a dysfunctional breathing pattern for an extended period of time there is a high chance that you have been recruiting your neck muscles to physically lift your rib cage which can cause big issues down the road. Plain and simple the muscles and joints in our bodies are designed to perform specific jobs, when they are unable to perform their jobs or are doing extra work, that is why dysfunction happens.

So I encourage everyone to add diaphragmatic breathing into their lives. Whether you have chronic low back pain or chronic neck tightness, diaphragmatic breathing could be a great place to start to feel better today.