360 Breathing for Great Foundations

In the first week of my online course and in the first session I see clients in person we always investigate what’s going on with their breathing - where they breathe from, where they feel their breath moving, where it doesn’t move and what’s the interaction with the pelvic floor especially as they begin to move and load their body.  Why start with breathing? And what does it matter?

For some women in the post-natal phase their breath gets stuck into only going forward because their mid-back gets tight and the hangover from carrying a baby means they are more open at the front. This can lead to some back pain and aches, a tendency to overuse the shoulders to help lift the ribs at the front and a change in the way the head and pelvis align to support the body. 

By encouraging the breath to expand the ribs in all directions - 360 breath - we are getting more movement in the side and back ribs and everything feels a bit more comfortable. It also means the abdominals can do the work they need to when we need them - picking up a child, lifting something heavy on one side, pushing furniture or just doing our jobs and daily life - if we have the physical resilience to breath and brace at the same time then we can create strength when we need it and not just when we are in a super controlled position. So first of all we work on feeling the breath all round the ribs with various ways of creating feedback to aid that feeling, then we make it more challenging - moving in and out of standing, kneeling, curling and flexing positions - and then add in load with spring resistance or holding weights or a moving surface.

The benefit I see with clients as we progress, and as I’ve seen with my own body, is we are able to stand taller, breathe deeper and longer and have more feeling and connection in the pelvic floor.  This means that we are able to experience the full range of loading on the pelvic floor - expansion on the breath in, and contraction/connection on the breath out - which helps massively when it comes to understanding any issues, changes in function as we age or through the monthly cycle and our response to different situations.

So how do you feel a 360 breath?  I always start lying down with knees bent, feet flat, however you can also do this sitting right back into a chair with your back supported.  Put your hands on the sides of your ribs with fingers forward and thumbs back.  Now breathe in nice and deeply and feel where it goes.  You want to feel an even inflation of your ribs into your fingers at the front, your palms at the sides and your thumbs at the back.  It may be that you don’t feel much movement into your thumbs, as I said above this is common due to posture changes in pregnancy.  Awareness is key here, so understanding that you don’t feel an even expansion is the first step, then aim to move your ribs more and expand more, and you can get into positions which will help shut down the front or sides of your ribs in order to feel the sticky areas a bit more.   This deep squat position will help to shut down the front so you have no choice but to breathe into the back even more.

How does your movement practice serve you?

When clients come to see me and they want to start progressing their strength and build on what they learn in class I always suggest doing some work at home.  Fairly obviously most people don’t have time or the money or the energy to come to a class daily and I don’t think that would be great for you anyway.  What I do think helps is chipping away at strength foundations every day if that’s possible for you. I definitely don’t mean for an hour every day, and I definitely don’t mean an intense session more than 3 times a week, maybe even less. 

What to consider when starting/committing to a movement practice:

1) Know Yourself! Personally I really struggle with high intensity exercise - maybe I used up all my intense sessions when I was rowing and doing CrossFit and I’ve got none left now? If you respond well and feel great after intense sessions, that’s great, monitor the best response you get from your body with how many per week suits you - 4 may be too many and leave you depleted, 1 may be too few as it may make you feel a bit sluggish in each session. Again this is my personal experience:  I do respond well to strength workouts, I am slightly hypermobile so I need more strength than anything else (hence Pilates and not yoga for me). Some women come in and talk to me saying they do circuits or running or something similar and feel a bit wobbly and are in pain afterwards, or drained and exhausted but don’t recognise this. At the time I was doing it, Crossfit was not a good workout system for me, I would get constantly injured and feel sore and depleted for days after each session.

2) Does your routine serve you well? If you are recently post-natal or coming out of the pre-school years and now wanting to focus on yourself, monitor how your pelvic floor, abdominals and any shoulder and back pain responds to the new exercise/movement regime. If you are in pain or have issues with leaking or a pooch tummy, don’t accept this as your new normal or just how it will be because of having babies, your movement practice should serve to strengthen and benefit you, helping you to build foundations in the right way, not in a more depleting way causing any further issues. If you start leaking, feel more weak in your centre, have lasting shoulder, neck or back pain and aren’t able to move well in your daily life, take some time to think about your movement practice and whether there might be something there that isn’t working for you.

3) “Listen to the whispers so you don’t have to hear the shouts”!!  After years of struggling to find the right way, I’ve built, over time, better foundations, which I continue to work on all the time: breathing, pelvic floor awareness, rib mobility, spine elongation, glute strength, and now I can build overall strength and dynamics on top of that. Take care not to go in hard straight away, getting over enthused by being unleashed into the world of movement after feeling like your body belongs to someone else for a few years. I totally understand the thinking, it feels so good to move, but this is also a moveable feast, your response to movement will change daily, weekly, monthly and so some exercise will suit you one day and feel all kinds of wrong the next. Of course our menstrual cycle affects that, as well as the physical demands we have from others day to day, as a woman ending her child bearing life phase and moving on to the next we also have influences from post-birthing and feeding hormones as well as the coming peri-menopause symptoms. You may have to become more aware of your needs and responses as you go on.

4) What to do and how often? My personal commitment and what works for me is to do a max 10 minute glute mini workout often in front of the TV in the evening or between working on admin stuff during the day and then 2-3 longer workouts like this one ☝🏼 each week. I’ll do my rehab stuff as often as possible too (there’s always something needing doing) and I run with my dog, as long as I’m not injured, twice a week - this is often a walk and not a run, always on trails and hilly or rough ground. This works for me as I know I can fit in at least 2 longer sessions each week on days that I work less, and I know that if I don’t do some extra glute work through the week, my hips and back get achy and tired, and I need the correct support from my core to be able to move, sit while working for long periods, and do my job. The running happens if I can because I might as well use the time I walk my dog to do a bit of extra sweating. I put no pressure on myself with this, running is not my natural thing, but I do love the enjoyment of moving faster than walking, sweating and pushing myself a bit.

When you are looking at this you may think, “oh I could never do something every day” or “I could never do 2 longer sessions, I just don’t have the time”, so this is where you look at what time you do have, what you’d really love to do, who you could ask to support you to be able to choose that option (see previous blog post) and maybe what you might have to give up to make that commitment. Often if we look at it, there are slack times in our day when we don’t need to spend half an hour scrolling Instagram ( yes, me too, it’s a sap!) or an hour watching TV in the evening - actually a useful time to consciously move. I’ve had good responses with women willing to do a short circuit while cooking dinner in the evening - the trick here is being prepared so you’re at least in comfortable clothes ready to move when you have the opportunity.

5) Values - in the end your choice of movement comes down to your values for yourself. Where do you want to get to? What does your future look like and your ideal week of movement entail if time and money were no object? Moving in a nourishing way is a show of self-love, loving yourself enough to honour the adventure that you and your body have been in through your life, showing yourself how brilliant you are for housing, nourishing and nurturing another human and giving yourself the space to rebuild with all that you have experienced inside you now.

Have you found your way with your workout/exercise/sport/movement routine? Are you struggling to work things out? Do you want help and to find a way?

As a post-natal corrective exercise specialist I see women 1-1 in both my studio in Sussex and online from anywhere in the world, get in touch to chat over your needs and how I can help you.

Breathing for mind and body!

When it comes to breathing in running it would seem simple enough that you just breath and your breathing gets bigger as you need more oxygen through exertion.  However, how many times have you got a stitch, felt some weakness in your pelvic floor, or felt that you don’t have enough breath left in you to keep going?  These are all symptoms of a problematic breathing pattern and you can do something about it really easily.

Why is breathing correctly so important? 

1. Full breath = more oxygen - pretty obvious but the more of your lungs you use the more oxygen you get in and so the more your muscles have available to use up.  Often I find runners will breath into the upper part of their lungs and use their shoulders to heave their upper ribs up and down which creates a shallow, short breath, this is fine if you’re sprinting shorter distances but not if you’re running a 10k or marathon.

2. Diaphragm and Pelvic Floor (PF) need to work together.  Your diaphragm is a large sheet of muscle sitting and curving with the base of the ribcage and attaching into your spine, and your pelvic floor is a set of different muscles that all sling like a hammock between the bony parts of the base of the pelvis and spine.  The pelvic floor muscles and the diaphragm mirror each other and work most effectively and completely when they mirror each other exactly both in alignment (being over the top of each other on the same plane) and movement pattern.  When we breath out the diaphragm draws up and this is mirrored by the pelvic floor drawing up, and as we breath in and the diaphragm comes down opening the ribs out to the sides, the PF also draws down between the bony landmarks of the pelvis giving a feeling of expansion or release.  In this way the PF works in the most effective way, allowing for the management of pressure in the abdominal cavity - if your PF and diaphragm work in opposites to each other (with the PF pushing down on the breath out) then the pressure in your abdominal cavity is increasing and pressure going into the PF can be hard to manage possibly resulting in PF dysfunction, leaking or potential to prolapse.  

3. Breathing from the base of the pelvis helps to connect with the lower abs as well as reducing pressure in the abdominal cavity.  Place one hand on your lower abs, and one hand on your upper abs and then breath heavy enough to be able to feel the movement of your belly while your breathing.  As mentioned above, it’s important for your PF to move down during the breath in and draw up on the breath out, you want to feel that the hand on your lower abs moves before your hand over your upper abs, drawing inwards.  The cue I use is “breathing out from the base of your pelvis”.  When you do this you are helping to manage the pressure in your abdomen again so that it doesn’t get pushed out to the wrong places (forwards or down) and helps your PF to connect with the lower part of the deep abdominal muscles below the belly button.  

4. Reduce strain on the shoulders.  As mentioned in point 1, runners often breath by heaving their shoulders up and down, by the end of a run you may find you have neck and shoulder aches and strain which can be quite tiring and require you to do something to soothe your aching shoulders!

What’s the solution?

1. Think of breathing 360 degrees all the way round the base of your ribcage imagining your ribs are like bucket handles lifting up and out to the sides, so you are not just breathing to the front but sides and back of your ribs as well.  You need to also think of feeling your ribs expanding out to the back of your body as well so mobility in this area is important - how do you get that?  More back body breathing of course!

2. When you’re at rest get used to practicing the movement of your PF and diaphragm so that they move synchronously up together on the breath out and down together on the breath in.  When you feel you’ve got that well practised, use the same breath pattern in all strength exercises you do and then also when you are moving dynamically.  Running might be the last step in that progression particularly if you’re having difficulty with it.

3. As in step 2 practice breathing from the base of your pelvis when at rest, then when doing strength exercises - supine lying, on hands and knees, sitting and then standing would normally be the progression for this as standing is the most complicated, but not always with all people.  Then progress to dynamic movement, always feeling the breath from the base of the spine.

4. If you are doing all the above you will be focussing on breathing down and low which is great and will release the strain on your shoulders.  Think of your shoulders as an American Football players shoulder pad frame that sits on top of your ribcage, unconnected to your ribs and so you are able to breath underneath your shoulders without involving them.

I hope all these points help you to breath with more control and more comfortably, able to run for longer and potentially faster!  

Let me know what you think, if you have any questions and if you have tried out these points and have any comments.

How not to hurt yourself when you run!

I hear from many women (myself included at one point), that they are worried about running because they don’t trust their pelvic floor, or they can’t run very much before it all going a bit pear shaped.  I get that, I wasn’t sure my pelvic floor would hold either, but now I know that you can start running whenever you like or whenever you need to without worry because if you set yourself up well you’ll be using your body efficiently so your pelvic floor will be in the right place. 

“But surely my pelvic floor is always in the same place, how can it be in the right or wrong place?” - ah well that’s the thing, the way we stand, walk, go up and down stairs, get out of a chair and run can all influence whether our pelvic floor is in a position where it can do it’s job well or in a position that there’s not a hope in hell it could hold on and so most likely it won’t!  So let’s set you up right and then off you go!

• Ideally I would have you take a photo of yourself side on so you can see the curves of your spine - if not a photo, at least stand side on to a mirror and take a look.

• Our spine has natural curves from the joint between our skull and neck curving slightly forward, the area around the back of our ribs curving slightly back and then a low curve behind our pelvis which curves forward again.  In some people these gentle curves can become exaggerated and a head forward posture leads to an increased upper back curve and increased lower back curve to balance all the way through.  In others the spine can be very flat through the upper half and with a steeper curve in the low back to compensate.  In others, and this is more common in post-natal women, the curve in the low back travels up to behind the belly button and either their butt sticks out or, more commonly they tuck their bottom under to compensate for the excessive curve higher up.

• So when you look at your spine, what do your curves look like?

• When you’re standing, walking, running and all the rest of your daily movements you want to think about keeping your ribs connected to the pelvis at the front.  In 99% of my clients we focus on ribs down - this is through expanding your back as well as connecting through your front.  So when you walk and go to start running keep your ribs dropped down so you have that connection and control set up right.

• Then check in with where your pelvis is, if it’s stuck out you’re going to have problems with the impact of running on your low back, and if it’s tucked under - surprisingly common! - you’ll have problems with your pelvic floor struggling to hold strong enough with the weight of your trunk going down through your pelvis. Start from the ribs and then you may find the pelvis stacks correctly underneath.

• What about your head?  Remember your head is pretty heavy, if you run with your head stuck out forwards that’s going to increase the slump down through your upper back and make it heavy to keep picking up each step - like holding a bowling ball in your arm all the time!  So keep your chin tucked slightly and back of your neck long so your head and ribs are all in a line.

• As you start to run, make sure you drive your legs back out behind you each step instead of scooting your feet forwards.  It helps if you start from where your foot lands - make it mid or fore foot instead of heel which means you are best to strike the floor almost under your body rather than out in front.

• Last thing - arms - do they swing across your body or do you use your arms forwards and back like pistons to help propel you.  If you are doing the cross body swinging thing you are potentially lacking mobility in your upper back to get enough counter rotation to your pelvis - ie. your pelvis and ribcage should rotate opposite to each other each step - but if you don’t get enough of this then your arms have to swing to get more momentum.

Having someone take a video of you running is a brilliant tool to help you learn.  You often find that what you think you’re doing and what you’re actually doing are a world apart from each other and seeing yourself can help you close that gap.

Don’t be afraid to run, here’s my top 3 tips for starting out:

1. Go by feel not distance, speed or what your technology says

2. Walk then run, walk, run, walk, run - slow to a walk when you feel your alignment (all those points above) is failing to hold.  There’s only any point in running while you’re doing good technique rather than ending up in a sloshy mess at the end.

3. Breath into your ribs to the side and back under your shoulders - more of that in the next post - not by tightening your neck and dragging your shoulders up

Have fun, running is a brilliant way to get some headspace, take an easy amount of time out to do something for yourself and most importantly enjoy spending time in nature whatever the weather. I will post more soon about conditioning exercises for running so you can make sure you’re strong enough all over to keep going.

Happy Running!