2 Best Friends: The Low Back & Belly Breathing
Low back pain is common.
Low back pain is not normal.
Let us tell you how breathing correctly can help.
The secret is out! Low back pain isn’t normal - surprise! Your pain can be from a whole slew of things including physical trauma, repetitive wear and tear, prolonged sedentary lifestyle, stress… the list goes on. If you’re reading this and haven’t come in for an assessment yet, we obviously don’t know the exact cause of your low back pain right this second. However, we can take a really good shot at what may be a contributing factor. If you follow us you probably have already heard the term diaphragmatic breathing, a fancy term for breathing through your belly. If you do not already belly breathe, it may be a contributing factor in your back pain and dysfunction. We cannot emphasize this enough!!
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You may be confused at connecting how breathing has any effect on the low back. Let me catch you up to speed. If we are not diaphragmatic breathing on a regular basis, the diaphragm is not in its most ideal position, and this in turn compromises our back because we are not correctly stabilizing it. This then leads to dysfunctional movement, very often resulting in pain. Even further, one of our abdominal muscles, called the transversus abdominis, actually goes from the front of our core, wraps around us, and attaches to the spine in the low back. When we breathe correctly, we are activating this muscle which is directly strengthening and stabilizing the low back! Pretty cool.
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First we must learn to breathe at rest. An easy way to start is to lay on your back, taking gravity out of it. In the video I show you to put one hand on your chest and one hand on your stomach. Taking normal sized breaths, and focus on directing your breath low into your belly. Only your bottom hand should move while doing this. From here we can transfer to doing the exact same thing while sitting. It’s a little bit harder sitting because we have gravity pushing down on us, but it is very important to master. Because when we can properly breathe, our diaphragm is in the correct position, the transversus abdominis activates, and we set ourselves up for success in any movement of the body since we now have a stable foundation.
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Being able to breathe like this naturally takes a lot of practice, but it can be done. It’s not something that will change overnight, but with a lot of practice it will start to become your unconscious way of breathing. We must first unwind years of sucking in our stomachs and begin to realize that actually letting that stomach out to breathe is doing us a whole lotta good!
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To now create what is called intra-abdominal pressure, or IAP, takes a bit of practice through exercise. IAP is created when we keep the pressure in our stomach independent of our breathing. AKA when I breathe in and my stomach expands, I should be able to keep this pressure while continuing to breathe. This means our stomachs should stay in that expanded position while we continue to breathe in and out. It is like creating a piston effect in our abdomen, giving us a 360 degree barrel of stabilization for our arms and legs to move from. This is HARD! However, it’s very important when it comes to lifting of any kind, playing sports, etc.
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In the video I show you an exercise to start working on this. We start on our backs with our arms and legs in the air like shown. In this position, we focus on 3 things: keeping our back flat against the ground, keeping the ribs down, and breathing low into the belly. From here we can create that IAP. Laying in this position activated is hard in and of itself. But we can start to test this IAP by getting our extremities into it. First start by lowering one leg at a time towards the ground, slow and controlled. Stop before you touch the ground, and slowly bring it back to center. The most important thing is to maintain those 3 things we talked about throughout the entire movement. I tell my patients all the time, the second your back starts to arch or your ribs flare and that IAP is lost, you should rest. Additionally, do not take your leg that far next time - only go to where your can maintain the IAP without breaking it. There’s no use in doing it incorrectly. Always quality over quantity! And eventually you will become better at it be able to lower you legs lower and lower while maintaining IAP the entire time.
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From there we can try lowering both legs at the same time. It is likely that you won’t be able to lower both legs as far to the ground while keeping the IAP as you can with only doing one at a time - and that is okay. To get the upper extremities into it, we can start doing what’s traditionally called the “dead bug” exercise. This is when you move your opposite arm and opposite leg at the same time, keeping the other ones suspended in the air.
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There’s a lot more where this came from when you come into our office! We have many different positions and movements to put your through to work on IAP, all depending on where your dysfunction is. There are many progressions to keep making it harder, which just keeps making you stronger and more stabilized. You will most likely find your pain diminish as you become stronger and get the correct muscles firing like they should! We’re very passionate about functional movement and would love to assess you!
