Take control of your BREATH

So go and lie down on the floor, legs long, arms by your side and take a breathe. What happened? Where did the breathe come from? Did your chest go up and down, did your abdomen rise and fall and could you feel your rib cage expand?

From the minute we are born our bodies automatically breathe.

Watch a baby in a nappy and you will see its tummy rise and fall with every breath. PERFECT! Compare that with yours or anyone from school age up, where life suddenly becomes more sedentary, and you will see the pattern change to a chest breath. Small, shallow breaths take over and we end up under utilising the whole of the lung, which is actually at its biggest deep down at the bottom of the rib cage.

Using the whole of the lung, optimally, for every breath can calm the cortisol levels down, which can positively alter our body fat storage, as well as lower the blood pressure, heart rate and ultimately make you more efficient at taking oxygen into the body and waste products out.

This a game changer not only in your sport but also in the way you train your body.

The breathing muscle or DIAPHRAGM, located at the bottom of the rib cage, is part of your CORE. A strong core is a great foundation to enable you to function correctly in every day life, whether you are bending down to pick something up, gardening, lifting your children up or taking the shopping out of the car. With the right breath and brace in the core, it can make the difference between an effortless movement or one that creates pain in the body, particularly the lower back.

Using the BREATH correctly is fundamental to the way I coach my clients. Whether they want to achieve a personal best in their sport, reduce stress and anxiety in everyday life or simply want to live a life without pain in the body, the breathe is the first place to start!

Here is a little exercise for you to do to help you start to utilise your lungs more efficiently, reduce stress in the body and start to train a strong core!

Lie down on the floor, arms by your side and legs long

1. Place your hands on your tummy and take a deep breath allowing it to rise and fall. Breathe out slowly and controlled and for as long as you can to exhale all the air from your body. Do this 3 times.

2. Now place your hands on the side of your ribs and on each deep breathe feel the rib cage expand laterally, then contract back to as narrow as the ribs will go. Do this 3 times.

Did you notice a difference in the way your body feels?