What is Diaphragmatic Breathing?
What is Diaphragmatic Breathing?
How to Train Your Breath and Core at the Same Time
In my last article I wrote about core strength and how it is extremely important for everyday functioning. During any fitness session with me, I will also stress how important proper breathing is to activate your core muscles. Inhaling deeply through your nose and exhaling forcefully through your mouth will engage your diaphragm.
The diaphragm is an often-overlooked muscle located below the rib cage, with the sole purpose of expanding the rib cage to allow for inspiration and expiration during a breath. The strength of your diaphragm and core stability go hand-in-hand. This is because, when breathing, the diaphragm contracts before your core can stabilize and protect the spine. If your breathing is shallow, this means your diaphragm is underused, which can leave your lumbar spine vulnerable to compensations, injury and pain.
Because the diaphragm is located centrally, in the middle of the body, it has many attachments to other muscles nearby. This includes connections to the thoracic and lumbar erectors, quadratus lumborum, the psoas, as well as the transverse abdominal muscles. This makes your diaphragm a core muscle.
The good news is, you can actually train both the core and breath at the same time to enable your diaphragm to function optimally. The easiest way to do this is to include controlled breathing when doing deep TVA (transverse abdominis) based core work.
Things like planks, dead bugs and side planks performed with control and with good breathing are great exercises to maintain a healthy diaphragm. Pilates is also an amazing way to train your core, breath and diaphragm at the same time as Pilates focuses on strong breathing while activating the core. Regularly doing these exercises can greatly benefit your postural alignment, diaphragm and core stability.
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Kim Duke is a certified personal trainer and owner of Core Performance Fitness and Training, 55 Bristol Lane, Ellicottville, NY. Kim resides in Ellicottville where she raised her two sons, Zach and Nik. For more information about her studio, visit her Facebook (Core Performance Health and Fitness), Instagram (@cptcoreperformance), go to www.coreperformancefitness.com or call her directly at 716-698-1198.
