Breath better, Move better.

Do you struggle to reach your arms overhead? Does your neck always feel a bit tight or stiff? 

Our bodies are so interconnected and sometimes we need to dive into why one area may not move as freely. The cool thing (and frustrating thing) is that a lot of the time it is a completely different area of our bodies that is causing the problem. It’s like a very fun, but reasonably complicated jigsaw. 

Tight lats can contribute to a lot of these restrictions in movements and have a significant impact on how our daily activities.  The following post has been inspired and adapted from the amazing work Dr. Sarah Duvall at Core Exercise Soultions does in helping me understand the human body to a level I never realised.

Your latissimus dorsi (lats) is the widest muscle in the human body and it plays an important role in shoulder movement and control. Through its connection with the thoracolumbar fascia, it can assist with spine and pelvic stability. It can also become an accessory breathing muscle and you all know how much I like to talk about breathing!

Oftentimes when your primary breathing mechanics are weaker, like with low intercostal and diaphragm strength, you’ll end up recruiting your accessory breathing muscles too soon and too often. Using the right breathing mechanics is so important for all our movements and how it affects the rest of our body.

If we overuse accessory muscles, this can result in increased tightness and tension in those muscles.

Tight lats can:

• 
  Limit rib cage mobility, affecting how you inhale (which can then affect how you exhale).

• Limit scapular movement, which limits shoulder flexion and external rotation.

• Pull down on the neck, leaving attaching muscles constantly lengthened and creating neck tension.

• Pull the pelvis into an anterior pelvic tilt, contributing to back tightness and lower belly pooching and affecting how other hip muscles can function.

They can also cause shoulder discomfort and mobility limitations:

• 
  When the lats become tight, they tend to pull the humerus (upper arm bone) into internal rotation.

• This internal rotation can cause shoulder discomfort and limit shoulder mobility.

• If you’ve ever experienced pain or stiffness in your shoulders, tight lats might be part of the issue.

• Tight lats can also contribute to locking down the thoracic region of the spine and preventing proper breathing mechanics.

• This limitation affects the ability of the shoulder to extend overhead.

Proper shoulder extension is crucial for movements like reaching overhead, lifting, and even performing exercises like pull-ups (and we all want to be able to improve our pull ups because they are super cool!)

We can stretch and foam roll our lats but we also want to look at our breathing and if we continue to use those accessory muscles for every exhale or brace, they’re just going to come back to being tight. We also want to add in intentional reaching (have you noticed how I keep asking you to reach with your pinkie fingers?), and increasing serratus strength can help inhibit your lats from wanting to help out. Improving rib cage mobility and intercostal strength will also help to decrease the need for calling in these muscles to help. 

So how do we put it all into practice?

Start with breathing: Follow this link to start with a simple breathing exercise to understand how your diaphragm works.

Passive Stretch: Hold for 30-60 secs each stretch. Breath and relax as you move deeper into the movement. 

Aim to do both of these practices on a daily basis and by combining the two (and being consistent) with them we will lose a whole heap of that neck and shoulder tightness and hopefully reduce those stress levels down as a bonus!