Posture impacts Breathing and Breathing Impacts Posture
Breathing and Posture are intimately interconnected.
Your diaphragm, your main breathing muscle, is the top of your core, whereas your pelvic floor is the bottom of your core. Every time you breathe, you’re impacting your intrabdominal pressure, spinal and core stability. Your posture impacts your breathing. How you breathe impacts your posture. Good posture allows the chest, diaphragm, and abdominal muscles to expand with little effort. Good posture lets the body’s nervous system know you’re safe and in control. Slouching forces the weight of the upper chest onto the abdomen. Poor posture requires more energy for respiration than when the back is elongated and relaxed. If you improve your posture, your breathing will be more efficient and better serve you.
If you improve your breathing, and focus on expanding the lower ribs in all directions, you can improve your posture.
According to this 2023 analysis of 11 studies, improving your breathing and breathing exercises may reduce lower back pain. Breathing into the lower ribs (diaphragmatic breathing) with an intentional rhythm allows people to connect with themselves and promote higher self-regulation, mainly to enhance gas exchange efficiency, respiratory muscle, diaphragm function, and reduce the brain's perception of pain, and ultimately achieve the purpose of alleviating low back pain. It has been reported that breathing exercises can strengthen the muscle strength and endurance of the transverse abdominal muscles and diaphragm. What's more, breathing exercises can activate the deep trunk stabilizing muscles more quickly, and it is also involved in the regulation of the structure and function of the lumbar spine (your lower spine), which can thus promote the rehabilitation of lower back pain.
Why do you lean over to catch your breath after you’ve been working out?
When you lean over and place your hands on your knees, you give your diaphragm a break. Your diaphragm no longer has to work double duty as a postural muscle in addition to a breathing muscle. By leaning over and supporting yourself with your arms, your diaphragm can unbrace the belly and stop supporting the spine. Leaning over allows you to take a fuller inhale, slow down your breathing, and recover. In Joana Michaelson’s 2019 Study, looking at female soccer players, leaning over and resting the hands on the knees was found to be a better recovery position that placing your hands on your head. Leaning over allowed their heart rate to reduce quicker and their breathing to slow. You want to flex the spine or round the back as you lean over with your hands on your knees.
How you stand, sit, and position your body impacts how much and how easily your rib cage can move. When you inhale, your diaphragm (main breathing muscle at the bottom of your ribs) descends and ideally your pelvic floor relaxes, also descending just slightly. When you exhale, your diaphragm rises up and your pelvic floor muscles contract slightly, raising your pelvic floor. This rhythm of your breath maintains your intraabdominal pressure, supports your spine, and supports your core. The relationship between the angle of your diaphragm (bottom of your ribs) and your pelvic floor (bottom of your pelvis) determines if your visceral organs can easily flow up and down as you breathe. By properly positioning your rib cage over your pelviis you allow for a smooth and easeful movement in the core when you’re at rest and while working out.
Try aligning your rib cage basket over your pelvic bowl
Stand up, bend your knees, and gently bounce, imagine your tailbone (the back of your pelvis) getting long and spacious. Relax your shoulders, tuck your chin slightly, bounce a few more times. Let your body settle into a position where you feel length through the torso and fluid. You want to feel really good when you gently bounce up and down. Can you maintain this posture as you move about your day?
The image above shows a range of postures. As the spine moves, so does the rib cage. Imagining sending the energy from your rib cage into your pelvis and vice versa. Can your rib cage and your pelvis play a game of catch that easily goes back and forth with the least amount of effort?