Post: How Breathing Can Help Improve Your Movement

Your Diaphragm: The Hidden Core Muscle Behind Spine Strength

Your diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle that sits under your lungs. It attaches to your lower ribs and the front of your lower spine. When you breathe in, it contracts and moves down. When you breathe out, it relaxes and rises.

But breathing is only half its job. Research shows the diaphragm has a dual role: breathing and postural control (Narrative review, 2023). In simple terms, it helps hold you steady while you move.

Think of your core as a can

Picture your trunk as a soft drink can. The diaphragm is the lid. Your pelvic floor is the base. Your deep tummy and back muscles form the sides.

When these muscles work together, they build gentle pressure inside the can. This is called intra-abdominal pressure. That pressure helps support your lower back, a bit like air in a tyre. A full can is hard to crush. An open, empty can folds easily.

A 2023 study measured this pressure during different breathing styles and body positions. It found that how you breathe and how you are positioned both change how hard your deep core muscles work (Kawabata & Shima, 2023). So breathing and core strength are not separate. They are one system.

Why this matters when you move

When you lift a shopping bag or reach overhead, your spine needs support first. Your diaphragm helps provide it. If the diaphragm is busy or stiff, other muscles often take over. Your neck, shoulders and lower back may tighten to do the job instead.

This is one reason we often see stiff upper backs and tight necks alongside shallow breathing. The body finds another way to stay stable. It works, but it can feel achy over time.

When Breathing and Stability Compete: Pain, Tightness and Breath-Holding

Your diaphragm has to share its time. It must keep you breathing and keep you steady. Most of the time, it juggles both well.

Problems can start when one job crowds out the other. Have you ever caught yourself holding your breath while gardening or typing? Many people do this when they are focused, stressed or sore. Breath-holding makes the trunk rigid. It feels stable, but it is a stiff kind of stable.

Over time, this pattern can leave your ribs and mid-back stiff. Your breathing may shift up into your chest and neck. The muscles around your lower back may stay switched on for longer than they need to.

What the research says about breathing and back pain

The good news is that breathing can be retrained. A 2023 review pooled 11 randomised trials of breathing exercises for low back pain. It found breathing exercises helped reduce pain and improve function (Shi et al., 2023). A 2024 review of 13 trials reached a similar conclusion for long-term back pain (Jiang et al., 2024).

Both review teams noted that many of the studies were small. So breathing is not a magic fix. But it is a safe, low-cost tool that can sit alongside other care.

In practice, this is why your chiropractor or osteopath may watch how you breathe. We look at whether your ribs move, where the breath goes, and whether you brace or hold. These small details can explain why a dull, achy back keeps coming back.

Every Breath Is Movement: How Breathing Creates a Gentle Stretch

Here is something many people miss. Breathing is movement. Each full breath moves your ribs, your mid-back, your belly and even your pelvic floor.

When you breathe in deeply, your ribcage widens to the sides and the back. Your diaphragm lengthens and lowers. Your tummy softens and expands. The tissues around your trunk get a gentle, rhythmic stretch. Then they relax again as you breathe out.

Multiply that by thousands of breaths a day. That is a lot of free, gentle mobility work. But if your breathing is shallow, your ribs barely move. Your mid-back can lose some of that daily stretch and start to feel stiff.

Your body is connected, end to end

The diaphragm does not work alone. It links with the muscles and connective tissue of your trunk, hips and neck. So tension in one area can show up somewhere else.

An older but well-designed trial tested a hands-on diaphragm stretching technique in 80 healthy adults. Straight after treatment, the group had better neck movement, more flexibility through the back of the legs and trunk, and more rib movement (González-Álvarez et al., 2016). The study only measured short-term changes. But it shows how closely the diaphragm is tied to the way the whole body moves.

Why stretch matters for your muscles and joints

Movement keeps tissues healthy. Gentle stretch helps joints glide and muscles stay supple. It also sends steady signals to your brain about where your body is and how it is moving.

When you breathe fully, you give your trunk this signal many times a minute. When you add easy movement to the breath, like rolling the shoulders or gently twisting, the effect builds. Breath and movement work better together than either one alone.

Breathing, Stretch and Your Nervous System

Your nervous system has two main modes. One is “go” mode, which gets you ready for action. The other is “rest and recover” mode, which helps you calm down and repair.

When you are stressed or in pain, your body often sits in “go” mode. Muscles stay guarded. Breathing gets fast and high in the chest. Sleep and recovery can suffer.

How a slow breath sends a calming message

Your lungs contain tiny stretch sensors. As your lungs fill, these sensors send messages to your brain through the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is a key part of your “rest and recover” system.

A 2022 review explained that slow, deep breathing stimulates these signals more strongly than normal breathing (Sevoz-Couche & Laborde, 2022). In other words, the stretch of a slow breath is a message. It tells your brain things are safe.

What the research shows

One way to measure the “rest and recover” system is heart rate variability. This is the natural change in time between heartbeats. Higher values usually suggest a calmer, more adaptable nervous system.

A large 2022 review looked at 223 studies on slow breathing. It found slow breathing increased these calming heart signals during practice, straight after, and after regular training (Laborde et al., 2022). The authors described it as a low-cost tool with few side effects.

Another 2023 review pooled 12 randomised trials with 785 adults. People who practised breathwork reported lower stress than those who did not (Fincham et al., 2023). The effect was small to moderate, and the authors urged caution. Still, it adds up to a helpful, practical habit.

Why a calmer nervous system helps you move

This matters for movement and pain. A nervous system on high alert tends to guard. Muscles stay tight, and movement can feel risky or sore. When the system settles, muscles can let go and movement often feels easier.

That is why we see breathing as part of movement care, not separate from it. A calm breath can make the next stretch or exercise feel more comfortable.

How Our Chiropractors and Osteopaths Can Help

At Five Dock Osteopathic & Chiropractic Centre, we look at more than the sore spot. Breathing is often part of the picture, especially with ongoing back, neck or mid-back pain.

During your assessment, we may:

• Watch how your ribs, belly and shoulders move as you breathe
• Check how well your mid-back and ribcage move
• Look at whether you hold your breath or brace when you bend, lift or reach
• Notice how your breathing changes when movement feels uncomfortable

From there, your care plan may combine hands-on treatment with movement and breathing exercises. Gentle joint and soft tissue work through the ribs and mid-back can help the area move more freely. Then we teach you how to use that new movement.

We start simple, often lying down, and build up. Once you can breathe well at rest, we add movement and load. The goal is to breathe and brace at the same time, during the tasks that matter to you. That might be lifting your kids, carrying groceries, or getting back to the gym.

Recent research supports this kind of step-by-step approach. A 2023 review suggested core training should start by restoring normal breathing, then gradually rebuild the diaphragm’s role in stability (Narrative review, 2023).

Try This: A Simple 360° Breathing Practice

This takes about three minutes. It is a gentle place to start.

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat.
2. Place your hands around your lower ribs, thumbs towards your back.
3. Breathe in slowly through your nose for about four seconds.
4. Feel your ribs widen into your hands, to the sides and the back. Let your belly soften too.
5. Breathe out gently through your mouth for about six seconds. Feel your ribs draw back in.
6. Repeat for 8 to 10 breaths.

Keep it easy. You should not feel light-headed or strained. If you do, slow down or take smaller breaths.

Once this feels natural, try it sitting, then standing. Then try keeping the same easy breath while you do a slow squat or reach.