BREATHE YOUR WAY TO LESS NECK AND SHOULDER PAIN

We’ve been talking about overactive traps and SCMs. Left unfixed, they will wreak 🌋 havoc on your neck and shoulder mechanics, and 🙅 ain’t nobody got time for that. When we breathe, the diaphragm should contract and pull ⬇ down, drawing air into the lungs. This contraction pulls the diaphragm down into the abdominal cavity, ➡⬅ compressing the abdominal organs, which is why we want to see the stomach expand as you breathe IN. This creates what we call intra-abdominal pressure, a key factor in stabilizing the core and fixing low back pain, but that’s for another post. Here we’re going to use one of my 💞 favorite rehab techniques, Reactive Neuromuscular Training. I use it a lot to correct knee cave and hip shifts in the squat, but it can also be used to fix your breathing! The weight pressing on your stomach mimics the bad pattern so your brain will flip a switch 💡 and reflexively breathe correctly to fix it. I like to go one step further and reach my fingertips to my heals to pull the shoulders ⤵ down and ge