How Breathing Can Restore Function and Improve Athletic Performance

Wherever you’re reading this article, take a deep breath. As air filled your lungs, did you feel your shoulders rise and fall? This means that you just used your cervical accessory muscles, or the muscles around your neck, to breathe. Rather than using the muscle designed for breathing, the diaphragm, your body compensated by using its scalene, SCM, and trap muscles. If you feel tightness at the base of your neck, this is likely a large contributor!

While this isn’t the proper way to breathe, you aren’t alone. A 2022 study in Japan focused on 2000 youth athletes. 91% of these young competitors presented with dysfunctional breathing patterns, even at a young age. While this pattern is common, even in our patients in the Tampa area, it shouldn’t be normal. Function First Sports Chiropractic wants to fix that.

Why Don’t We Breathe Correctly?

Poor posture is the first contributor. As you read this, are you sitting up straight? Or more than likely, did you just straighten yourself up in your chair? If you were already sitting with good posture, I commend you! With computers, cell phones, books, and TVs, we are finding ourselves more slouched over than ever. These poor postures often lead to joint restrictions, which limit our lungs’ ability to expand. Chiropractic adjustments are the perfect tool to remove these restrictions, but unless we address the source of the restrictions, the problem will return.

Even if you have managed to avoid this posture epidemic, it’s likely that school, work, or your environment has been a source of stress over the years. As we are stressed, our breaths become quick and shallow. We often recruit the muscles around the neck when this takes place so that we can breathe even faster. Eventually, this becomes the new normal. Over time, these factors have left many people far from the belly breathing that you see naturally take place in infants. While addressing posture, joint restrictions, and stress are all crucial, we also need to retrain the body to breathe correctly.

What is the Correct Way to Breathe?

Our stomach and ribcage should be the only part of our body that we see move with a deep breath. As you breathe into your lungs, imagine that your stomach is filling with air, too. As you exhale, your stomach should fall. This is because your diaphragm has lowered to make more room for your lungs to inflate, and then raised back up to allow you to exhale. Breathing can really be this simple! No upper back muscles involved.

Functions of the Diaphragm

The diaphragm isn’t just used for breathing. It also plays a large role in core stabilization. When the diaphragm is inactive, the core is like an empty soda can: weak, easy to lose its form, and quick to crumble under weight. As you expand your stomach with a deep breath, try to push through the front, sides, and back of your abdomen. You should feel a stable cylinder all the way around your core. Your core should feel like a full soda can: stable, strong, and able to hold its shape under weight. If this is hard at first, that’s okay. It might just take some practice!

How Does Core Stabilization Affect Athletics?

Core stabilization is crucial in every athletic endeavor. When the core isn’t supported, the body uses other muscle groups to compensate. If there is no control over your base while throwing a football, your body must find power and stabilization elsewhere. As an example, the rotator cuff will often take over these responsibilities, leading to decreased mobility, less strength behind the throw, and a higher risk of shoulder injury. Your health and performance are both negatively impacted. Throwing the football would be like shooting a canon on a canoe. The canoe would rock through the water! To have accuracy, power, and control, we need to shoot the canon off of a solid surface. We want your core to act the same.

Imagine a boxer throwing a punch or a tennis player swinging their racket. You can almost hear the grunt that they make. This noise is used to add Intra-Abdominal Pressure (IAP) to their core. Grunt, and you will feel your abdomen expand! IAP is how we use the diaphragm for core stabilization. Almost every athletic motion uses IAP: golf swings, squatting a barbell, throwing a ball, or blocking a defender. For some athletes, this comes naturally. Others need to work on it. At Function First Sports Chiropractic, we use tools like the Core360 Belt to monitor IAP during movements. With this belt, you can see a live graph of how much IAP you are generating. While we work on IAP at the office, you will subconsciously begin to transfer the skill to your sport.

IAP Allows for Improved Rehab

At F1, we use a technique called Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS). DNS uses the pressure of IAP to stabilize the spine and relieve low back injuries. Once we apply IAP, we use DNS to put our patients in specific positions that encourage developmental patterns. Now that the incorrect muscles aren’t compensating for a weak core, we can target and activate the proper muscular patterns. We use this technique to rehab hips, shoulders, knees, ankles, and most other injuries. This allows for correct muscle recruitment around each joint. Joints like your shoulder and knee can now move optimally while recruiting power from your core.

Come into Function First Sports Chiropractic today, and we can address sports injury with Chiropractic adjustments, myofascial release, IAP, and DNS. Contact us at www.F1SportsChiro.com or call (813) 421-4250.

Eliminate Pain. Prevent Injury. Improve Performance.