The Secret Sauce in Real Strength and Stamina

In the previous piece we looked at the role of our core in our movement performance. Now, we are going to look at the relationship between our breath, our core, and our movement.

I haven’t seen many people able to breathe effectively or engage their core muscles intelligently, despite us needing both and at the same time, all the time.

Most people engage their core without really knowing what they are trying to do. Then, if they also try to breathe, their core muscles shudder with confusion as they force their way through a few ineffective and exhausting breaths.

I’ve watched people in all activities struggle to juggle core stability and ample breathing.

In other words, people are forced to choose between spinal instability or suffocation. Often they are forced to deal with both. But never have I seen someone reliably operate with neither.

In this piece, I'll explore how learning to coordinate our core and breathing together can drastically improve our movement.

Proper breathing its absence, and performance.

It’s a simple equation, really; we can only move as much as our fuel supply allows us. So we should strive to breathe effectively during all activities.

If we cannot breathe effectively enough, we will not supply enough air, our performance will decline and our sense of exertion, or effort, will increase - we will move worse, and feel worse.

All other things being equal, our movement performance across every metric will decline with a decrease in air supply. Conversely, more air equals more movement.

And, most people have no idea that it is their poor ‘ventilation’ making their movement feel much more strenuous than it should feel.

Proper breathing makes movement feel easier and enjoyable. Poor breathing makes it feel excruciating and depleting.

Take a moment to think about the difference between inhaling a deep breath of fresh air, and the feeling of suffocating. This is the same difference in feeling between moving with proper breathing compared to moving without proper breathing - worlds apart.

Consequently, this difference in our psychological experience of our movement also improves our movement quality. We can stay relaxed and focus better, giving us the chance to apply our mind to our movement much more effectively.

So, proper breathing increases our movement capacity, it makes movement more enjoyable, and it can elevate the quality of our movement. Inadequate breathing destroys our movement in the same, but opposite, ways.

Proper breathing is inspiring and energising, poor breathing is excruciating and depleting.

Sadly, most of us have a long way to go before we are always well ventilated.

Let's look at why proper breathing is so challenging, in particular, during movement.

The Core and Breathing

Let’s quickly recap a few things we have already established.

Firstly, we have poor breathing, even when resting (bad habits developed over a lifetime of sedentary and seated activity). Yet, we need to continuously breathe effectively to supply enough oxygen to our cells, especially for movement. Therefore, we must breathe throughout our movement.

Secondly, our spine is central to all of our movement. And, our spine depends on an active core to function. Therefore, we need an engaged core (to some level) throughout our movement.

Thus, we need to breathe AND engage our core during movement, simultaneously, most of the time.

However, in general, our breathing sucks. And, we have very little skill when it comes to coordinating our core. When we try do them together, everything falls apart. Especially during movement.

We have lost the ability to use our core and breathe, simultaneously.

There is some specific coordination that our modern physical development is lacking, or opposes. Most people that I have observed cannot unlock their breathing from their core activation to any meaningful degree - when they engage their abdominals, they block their breathing.

We need to be able to engage our core effectively and keep our breathing completely unrestricted - they need to operate independent of each other.

Let’s take this a step further.

The more we move, the greater the demand on our spine and core, and our need for air increases. Still, we are not able to do them at the same time.

When we are unable to engage our core, the functions of our spine and core are compromised. Functions which impact all of our movement.

The moment we start moving and need our breathing to pick up, it struggles, because we keep holding our breath as we engage our core. Breathing which grants us the capacity, enjoyment and quality of our movement.

Thankfully, our breathing is also unconsciously driven, forcing it when we try to hold it for too long. So, before we die from suffocation, we disengage our core muscles to restore breathing.

An unstable spine sucks (alot) but its definitely better than the consequences of not breathing for too long.

Then, the moment we feel like we have ‘enough’ air, we brace our spine and return to strangled breathing.

Yet, even if we could do them both perfectly proficiently, only not simultaneously, that’s still half of the time unstable, and the other half suffocating.

But things are much worse than that - we do them both poorly, even on their own - so we alternate between struggling to do one, then the other.

You may not believe me when I describe it like this, because it sounds like a proper disaster. At least, I’ve tried really hard to communicate the disastrous-ness of the situation.

The most easily observable consequence of this problematic situation is the prevalence of injuries, especially around the lower back, that people are experiencing during their movement.

The losses in performance are just as profound.

However, the difference in our subjective experience of our movement is the most significant, in my experience.

Personal Experience

There are more personal reasons than injury and performance to tackle these issues.

There is the sensation of instability and exhaustion. Think of a car with its handbrake up and a few important screws loose - a terrible driving experience.

I can write books on how different it feels to let the handbrake down and tighten those screws - but you will not appreciate the difference until you experience it for yourself.

Think about the difference it would make to your movement performance and enjoyment if you could easily and continuously stabilise your spine and breathe effectively - it would be a whole new experience. Layers and layers of your movement would be revolutionised.

I have learnt to coordinate a strong, coherent and continuous core activation WHILE continuing to breathe easily. This allows me something that I haven't seen much of at all, lots of stability and ventilation, together.

I haven’t mastered this duo in all activities, but as the months pass I am incorporating this into a greater variety of movements, and it feels like a proper upgrade.

My spinal core is changing from previously feeling insecure and confused, to now feeling like a high-performance machine, and my ability to breathe fully all the time feels like I have a bottomless fuel tank.

I can take advantage of the performance enhancing effects of the spinal-core and breathing, at all moments, and I can avoid the high cost of letting either one of these slip, for even an instant.

This investment is already paying dividends, and I still feel like I’m only getting warmed up.

Conclusion

The process is straightforward, really. First, learn to coordinate your spinal-core properly. Then, practice deep diaphragmatic breathing. Lastly, master doing these together.

Start in the simplest positions. Progress to ever more complex patterns.

Becoming a master of your spinal core and breathing, in simultaneity, is extremely rewarding - you’ll beat most pains, and boost most gains.

In fact, I have already received so much from correcting these elements of my movement that I am writing about it every day now (what you are reading).

You can find the very best of what I have learnt so far in my course ‘Kinetic Keystone’, for which you can even get started for free.

In the course, I have compiled the best of what I know into streamlined protocols. I have been obsessing over this topic for over a decade now, and I have worked with hundreds of clients with back pain, from athletes to couch potatoes.

These ideas have been put to the test, over and over, and they have passed with distinction.