Pelvic pain & beer guts
Opposing ends of the spectrum with a common solution (part 1).
Part 1 - UNDERSTANDING BREATHING.
You might wonder, what do pelvic pain—a typically female problem—and men with large abdomens (beer guts) have in common?
At first glance, their issues seem to be on opposite ends of the spectrum. However, both share a common symptom: compromised respiratory mechanics.
Here are some common symptoms associated with each group (though not limited to these):
Women with Pelvic Pain:
Stomach cramps
Endometriosis
Back & hip pain
Chronic pelvic pain
Anxiety/Stress
Respiratory issues
Men with Large Abdomens:
Hemorrhoids
Herniations
Heart disease
Prostate issues (including cancer risk)
Chronic pain
Rectus diastasis
Erectile dysfunction
Coincidentally, the common symptom shared by both is compromised respiratory mechanics.
Part one of this series is to give you an understanding of how and why we breathe. Understanding this is crucial as it sits at the very core of how we can address certain symptoms of pelvic pain and improve the health of blokes with guts.
Anecdotally, having worked with thousands of bodies with the intention of making people move better, when you reverse engineer movement incompetencies, I tend to find myself at the very beginning of all movement for all humans - the breath.
Consider this, if a baby is born and doesn't breath (cry), nothing else matters except generating respiration. Nothing.
Sitting here right now, you cannot function for more than a few minutes (if that) without respiration. It occurs subconsciously and, from a movement perspective, is something we need to continue to improve/maintain.
The aim of today's post is to give you a better understanding of the movement mechanics relating to improved abdominal muscles, pelvic floor health, breathing and consider solutions when it comes to better movement - all of which starts with the way you breathe.
Understanding how and why we breathe.
The neurology & chemistry of breathing
When working with people, I like to simplify breathing and get them to consider it from two ends of the spectrum.
You may have heard of these two neurological states, but what you may not know is the associated breathing patterns to match.
Sympathetic neutral state = faster shallow respiration, common during training and necessary for quick gaseous exchange (because of increased metabolic by products).
Parasympathetic neural state = deeper slower breathing, common at rest, reduced need for gaseous exchange (less metabolic byproducts)
Typically, inhale is related to stress/anticipation of stress, exhale is related to relaxation/relief of stress.
If you think of it logically, when you get a shock/fright it's a quick “gasp” in (prep for stress).
When you are relieved, it's a sigh or long slow exhale of relief.
Professor Andrew Huberman brilliantly explains the biomechanics and neuromechanics of this process in the instagram post below:
If we breathe short and shallowly, it triggers a stressed state.
If we breathe deep and slow, it triggers a rested state.
The problem most of us have, is that we breathe short and shallow far more often than we need to - particularly when we are at rest (or trying to be).
The mechanics of breathing
To give you a further understanding of why it is important to respire downward and deeply involves both the shape and alveoli availability of our lungs. Our lungs are cone shaped with better quality alveoli availability at the bottom of our lungs. This allows for improved gaseous exchange and general healthy lung function.
When someone becomes ill with respiratory related disease, their ability to respire deeply is compromised, reducing the range of their breath, compromising the use of their lungs leading to short and shallow respiration strategies. Should the compromised respiratory function continue, worst case scenarios lead to a complete collapse of the lung (let's hope none of us ever get there).
Respiration is a system that needs to be trained at the end of the day.
Another way to consider effective respiration into the depths of the cone shaped lung involves the reason we like to hunch over to catch our breath when training at a high intensity. It allows for us to take fast but deep breaths pulling air into the deep part of our lungs, where alveoli are abundant for improved gaseous exchange.
It also reduces the tension in our abdomen allowing it to soften and stretch on inhalation letting the diaphragm to do its thing without any limitation.
To breathe effectively at rest we should be taking long slow deep breaths down to our belly and expanding the bottom of our ribcage wide.
When exercising, don't worry about it so much, you’ll breathe how you need to (and mechanically better if you improve your resting breathing mechanics).
Assessing your own breathing mechanics.
Here’s how to assess it yourself:
If you are unsure about your own breathing mechanics, lay down on your back and place a hand on your chest and hand on your belly.
Take a big breath in and observe which hand moves first - the top or bottom hand?
Do the same thing and deliberately don't let the top hand move upward or your chest forward BEFORE your bottom hand.
This will give you an acute understanding of the basic mechanics and more importantly, if it feels strange/difficult, you need to get practicing breathing downward!
If you breathe upward and into your chest or shoulders (look around, a lot more people do it than you think) you're a chance of dealing with some sort of neck and shoulder tightness as well as potential respiratory related issues, stress/anxiety and so on.
This instagram post gives a clear image of the difference between “upward” respiration & downward respiration.
So now you have an understanding of breathing and it’s place in the ecosystem that is your movement and general health, part two of this series breaks down how breathing relates to pelvic pain & enlarged abdomen (guts).
Link to part two.