Here is a trick you might not know about.
A trick that can help you manage your low back pain and muscle stiffness.
Want to know what it is?………..
Here We Go
In the world of low back pain sufferers, there are so many causes/triggers that could be contributing to your pain.
Believe it or not, one such cause is BREATHING INCORRECTLY (i.e. dysfunctional breathing patterns). Funny enough, there is more to breathing then just breathing in and breathing out, and as it’s something we all do up to 20,000 times a day, don’t you think it would be important to be doing this correctly?
I’m going to go out on a limb here and simply say chances are, you’ve never spent the time or focus fine-tuning a fundamental skill that is literally keeping you alive and you are most likely butchering more than 20,000 times per day.
Don’t you think its time then to learn how to breath correctly?
Low Back Pain and Breathing
The relationship between low back pain and poor breathing habits is highly documented. To put a long story short, think of it this way:
improve your breathing patterns –> improves oxygenation to your lower back –> improved oxygenation to the lower back helps to reduce muscle tone/stiffness –> reduced muscle tone and stiffness can thus mean less pain.
But not all breathing is created equally. And the demands of breathing vary depending on the activity at hand. To truly unlock your body’s potential, you must first learn to breathe well by correcting any dysfunctional breathing patterns you may have.
There are numerous breathing techniques we use in our clinic with our patients.
Today we share one of those.
A breathing technique that you will literally be able to instantaneously see notable results from.
Remember, for some patients, fixing low back pain can be as simple as taking the right type of breath.
What is this breathing technique?
One of the most effective corrective breathing exercises that I have seen over the last 15 years working as a physiotherapist, that has literally helped thousands of our patients, is called the Crocodile Breathing Technique (CBT).
Simply put, Crocodile breathing involves taking diaphragmatic breaths while lying face-down. Don’t be fooled, it’s not easy. We use the ground as a tactile cue from the face down position. Why face down? This strategy is a game changer that’ll help you really “feel” what it is to properly expand the belly through 360-degrees. This position is also ideal to keep secondary respiratory muscles out of the breathing process (interesting note: people who are more dominate in their secondary respiratory muscles usually suffer from issues such as chronic headaches and neck pain).
When To Use This Technique:
We use the crocodile breathing technique early on with our low back pain patients who truly struggle with disassociating compensatory chest breathing from deep diaphragmatic belly breathing.
Breathing is a motor skill, and if we want to achieve a permanent change of motor learning in our breathing, then breathing practice must be implemented to re-learn this skill.
Practicing 1-3 minutes of Crocodile Breathing per day, is usually recommended to start chipping away at old poor habits and ingraining superior new ones.
How To Execute The Crocodile Breath:
Here are some major setup details you need to be focusing on to get the most out of the Crocodile Breath:
Set-Up: Begin face down, so that your stomach is on the floor and place an ankle weight on the upper back and the lower back. Place your forehead on your hands, both palms down, one covering the other. Make sure the chest and arms are relaxed, and you are as “flat” as you can get; your neck should be relaxed and comfortable. You should feel that you are on your chest not on the edge of your ribs. Keep your legs straight and your toes pointed down. Relax all aspects of the body into this central position.
Make sure you have definitely placed your forehead on your hands, for some this can feel a little odd and unnatural, but the reasoning behind propping your head on your hands is based on two reasons. First, the head and neck need to remain in a neutral position (with the head NOT turning to one side) to clearly open up the airway. Secondly, with the hands and arms elevated, the secondary respiratory muscles, mainly the scalenes, sternocledomastoid (SCM), and the upper traps are placed into a more relaxed position away from stretch and tension.
Once you are ready to go and positioned correctly, the focus will be placed on the execution and the quality of the breath reps.
We recommend the following tempo
Tempo of Breath: Inhale 4-6 seconds/ Hold 2-4 Seconds / Exhale 4-6 Seconds
The above tempo is important for the proper execution of the drill, but the true focus firstly needs to be placed on the expansion of the belly into the floor. Since the belly is in direct contact with the floor, it is the perfect setup for breathing INTO the floor, expanding through the diaphragm authentically.
To take this concept one step further, we are also wanting 360-degree expansion, meaning that not only are we breathing into the belly against the floor, but expanding our breathe through our lower back along with the sides of the torso expanding. To get a feel for this type of expansion pattern, you can use some small ankle weights placed on your lower back and upper back to push up against during the breath.
Once you have effectively learnt/mastered the explained breathing expansion pattern above, the focus will shift to the tempo of the breath itself. While the above tempo prescriptions of (4-6/2-4/4-6) aren’t the be all or end all/set in stone, we do want to ensure that the breathing out component is a little longer than the breathing in component to optimize gaseous exchange and slow down the whole breathing process to avoid compensations. Also, make sure to pause and hold the breath for a split second at the top to truly experience the feeling of a 360-degree expansion, as that is the corrective goal.
Goodluck and Get Breathing!!!
If you would like to watch our video on Crocodile breathing please click the link below. For more content like this please follow us on instagram @ppsphysiotherapy
https://www.instagram.com/p/CJFY7qHAhwm/?igshid=axijy5dlvyic
- Grant Burton – Physiotherapist
