Last week I wrote a quick recap of a staff in-service that included Michael Mullin stopping by for a few hours and sharing a flood of insights about the inner workings of the Postural Restoration Institute (PRI) philosophy. If you missed it, you can read my previous post. In short, our breathing tends to be off.
I’m more of an analogy guy, so here’s one most readers can relate to: if our breathing patterns were a singer, they’d be the worst karaoke performance you’ve ever heard—unpleasant, off, and hard to listen to. Not pretty.
As a follow-up to that post, current Cressey Performance intern/coach (and resident break-dance/Gangnam Style enthusiast), Miguel Aragoncillo, wrote a quick piece I think many of you will enjoy.
Why are we breathing inefficiently?
Basically, everyone breathes in a way that isn’t ideal. We’re all stuck in patterns. The question is, do you want to break free from the pattern?
PRI’s take is that we all share the same basic anatomy—two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears, and so on. To tie this to Tony’s blogpost, there are differences in diaphragmatic function and placement—our heart sits on the left/center, the liver on the right, plus various diaphragmatic attachments and how the right and left lungs are controlled and structured. With that anatomical refresher in mind, you can ask: how does this affect how we use our diaphragm?
Here are a few ideas PRI highlights as they relate to breathing and motion:
1. Posture
What’s your posture like? If you’re constantly standing, moving, or coaching, you’re often in a more extended position. If you’re a desk person—phone to your ear, a keyboard to your lap, and a not-so-comfy chair—you’re usually sitting with a lot of flexion. Whether you’re extended or flexed most of the day, the posture you adopt will influence you over the long term.
2. Patterns
After a two-day PRI seminar at Endeavor Fitness, my brain was mush on the ride home, so I’ll spare you the full brain-melting details. Suffice it to say there are different movement patterns we can fall into, and there are specific exercises designed to inhibit these patterns and encourage a better working posture. Athletes with strong unilateral demands (think baseball) are prime candidates for PRI’s corrective work. Personally, as a breakdancer, I’ve got plenty of dysfunction and asymmetry—favoring one direction and one side for various moves fits neatly with PRI’s ideas. During the seminar I had several “aha” moments about why I move the way I do and why I favor one side over the other after years of dancing. Look at any sport—baseball pitchers, soccer players with a dominant leg, swimmers who favor one side for turns—the constant demands of sport plus your structural posture often reinforce dysfunction, which can worsen common injuries in those activities. These dysfunctions influence how we breathe and how we respond to certain exercises or stretches.
3. Positioning
In the practical portion of the in-service at CP, we tried some pretty challenging positions, even blowing up a balloon. But getting into an ideal position helps us break the pattern more readily. Don’t fear—the ability to shift out of the pattern is within reach, much like Neo in The Matrix.
The activation and setting of the abdominal muscles pull the lower ribs down and in and help relax the trunk extensor muscles, which can reduce lumbar lordosis and back pain through reciprocal inhibition. Some participants even reported immediate relief after these exercises—less tension in the back, or movement pain easing up after being repositioned. I even asked Michael Mullin to walk me through more advanced tests, since I’d only experienced the lower half of the assessments. After breathing into a few positions, I saw immediate improvements with my shoulder issues. Crazy, but true.
Putting it all together
Putting these pieces together suggests many of us fit into a few common patterns from the start. What can we do now? PRI provides a handful of corrective exercises that are used with athletes who remain caught in “the pattern.” It may sound like a Stephen King plot, but bear with me.
A common question is how to fit more work into an already packed session of foam rolling, mobilizations, and strength work. In my own coaching at CP, I’ve been experimenting with placing these corrective moves after foam rolling, before a dynamic warm-up, and between sets of heavy lifts.
Note: if a balloon feels odd, you can use a standard straw instead. Inhale through the nose, blocking the straw with the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth to seal it.
And for those who feel awkward doing this in the gym, it’s no stranger than someone performing one-legged squats on an inverted BOSU ball while curling pink dumbbells.
We’ve also stressed the importance of maintaining good posture while standing during games, during travel, and even at rest—whether you’re sitting or sleeping. If your commute is long, deliberately shifting your posture can go a long way toward reducing symptoms.
What can we expect after embracing these ideas?
Whether you call it diaphragmatic breathing or the zone of apposition, be mindful of how you position yourself not only during exercise but also during rest and, most importantly, during respiration. With these concepts in place, I recommend watching the diaphragmatic breathing video again to see how these factors can influence performance and help you break out of The Pattern.
Author’s bio
Miguel Aragoncillo, CSCS, earned his B.S. in Kinesiology from Temple University. He focuses on helping people move better and lift heavy things. Miguel is currently interning at Cressey Performance and enjoys Techno Tuesdays, breakdancing, and powerlifting. You can read more of his writing at www.miguelaragoncillo.wordpress.com and follow him on Twitter @MAragoncillo1.
References:
-1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2971640/ – The value of blowing up a balloon
