Breathing, Structure, and Movement

In the world of health, fitness, and human performance, breathing often occupies a strangely paradoxical space: it’s simultaneously too obvious and simple to focus on, and equally too complex to full grasp. Everyone breaths, assuming you’re alive… But not everyone breathes well. When the act of breathing falters, the consequences have a ripple effect far beyond just basic oxygen exchange. It alters how we move, how we feel, and how our bodies organise and strategise themselves at the deepest structural levels.

For In-Person clients reading this, they will have recognised how we value the breath during movement, how exercises tend to have a respiratory pattern, and how we utilise position to enable more uniform expansion throughout the ribcage and pelvis. This article will act as an introductory exploration of this intersection between respiration, structure, and performance. Breathing is not simply a matter of lung volume - it’s a master regulator of posture, movement variability, nervous system regulation, and ultimately, athletic performance potential.

Breathing Is More Than Gas Exchange

At its most basic level, breathing is simple: air in, air out. Something we do 20,000+ times per day. But beneath this simplicity lies a deep complexity that outlines the cascade of effects that occur with each cycle. The breath represents not just airflow but shape change - the coordinated expansion and compression of the ribcage, spine, and pelvis. The muscles responsible for this movement, particularly the diaphragm, anchor to bone. As such, dysfunctional breathing does not stay isolated to the act of respiration. It directly shapes and influences posture, movement patterns, and systemic health.

Small deviations in breathing mechanics can initiate a downstream compounding of compensations. When certain respiratory muscles remain chronically “on” or “overactive” - unable to fully relax - they pull bones and joints into altered positions. Over time, this limits joint mobility, shifts centre of gravity control strategies, and narrows the range of available movement options. What starts as a subtle shift in rib position can eventually affect everything from athletic performance to chronic pain.

The Diaphragm: Both Engine and Architect

The diaphragm plays a dual role: it’s both the primary muscle of respiration and a major influence on position and postural with its role in stabilisation. Its attachments to the lower ribs and lumbar spine give it enormous mechanical influences of spinal extension, rotation, rib positioning, and pelvic alignment.

When functioning well, the diaphragm cycles fluidly between contraction (inhalation)and relaxation (exhalation), allowing the ribcage to expand and compress uniformly as needed. But when breathing becomes compromised, chronically shallow, rapid, or effortful - whether from stress, poor habits, or physical demands - the diaphragm can become locked in a state of persistent tone. It’s no different than a perpetually “tight”hamstring or overly fatigued bicep.

This “hypertonicity” pulls the lower ribs into a flared positions, arches the lumbar spine, tilts the pelvis forward, anteriorly, and can lock the thorax into an extended, compressed state. Over time, accessory muscles like the neck, traps, pecs, and lats are recruited to compensate for this lost diaphragmatic excursion. What began as a breathing inefficient now manifests as a full-body postural distortion.

Structure Bias: The Helical Archetypes

Not everyone breaths - or moves - in the same way. Structural shape influences respiratory mechanics from birth. The concept of helical archetypes (* full credit to Physical Therapist, Bill Hartman and his Unified Health and Performance Continuum Model)helps to categorise based on these tendencies:

1. Narrow Infrasternal Angle (ISA) individuals present with a compressed ribcage with circumferential restriction. Their breathing often biases toward inhalation, driving an external rotation (ER) bias across joints.

2. Wide Infrasternal Angle (ISA) individuals have a more expanded ribcage baseline and often rely more heavily on exhalation patterns, producing an internal rotation (IR) bias.

• It’s important to recognise these are both vast oversimplifications of the concept of helical archetypes, I would strongly recommend listening to this podcast Reconsider… Are You Wide or Narrow? - with Bill Hartman or checking out his Unified Health and Performance Network

Each archetype presents distinct movement tendencies, compensations, and resulting needs. Importantly, neither archetype is considered “good” or “bad” - they simply represent different starting points that influence how breathing and training interventions should be applied.

Breathing as the Mirror of Movement Variability

Under this guise, breathing can be used as a proxy for system variability. The smooth interplay between inhalation (ER bias) and exhalation (IR bias) reflects how much relative joint motion is available.

• A balanced breath - where inhalation and exhalation reciprocally shift the shape of the ribcage, thorax, and pelvis - suggest adaptability and joint freedom.

• A breath dominated by one phase (chronic inhalation or exhalation bias) signals limited variability and increasing compensatory strategies.

Key Principle:

The degree to which inhalation and exhalation shift relative to one another reflects the system’s available movement variability.

Even during loaded movements such as squatting or pressing, breathing patterns reveal whether segments of the body are moving relative to one another or simply moving en bloc through brute compensations.

The Performance Cost of Breathing Compensations

The downstream consequences of faulty breathing mechanics extend far beyond simple postural changes or minor inefficiencies. Over time, alterations in breathing influence systemic physiology:

• Nervous System Sensitivity: Chronic hyperventilation leads to respiratory alkalosis, heightening nervous system activity. Pain perception, light, sound, and general sensory input can feel amplified.

• Mood and Emotional Regulation: Altered CO₂ levels can create oscillations between hyper-arousal (anxiety) and hypo-arousal (depression), trapping individuals potentially in emotional feedback loops driven by altered breathing patterns.

• Immune and Inflammatory Response: Disrupted breathing patterns can elevate histamine levels and increase susceptibility to inflammatory states.

• Circulatory Compromise: Muscle tone increases while blood flow to vital tissues (brain, heart, limbs) may become altered and restricted under chronic dis-regulation.

In athletes, these alterations may become amplified under load. A weightlifter struggling to exhale fully may show asymmetrical rib flare, changes in pelvic position, or excessive scapular retraction that doesn’t resolve with conventional strength or mobility work alone. The root in this instance is often a diaphragm unable to relax fully, restore it’s resting position, trapping the ribcage and pelvis in positions that resist variability until respiratory mechanics are addressed. A possible strategy for enhanced performance, yes. A strategy for everyday use, potentially not.

Breath-Centric Coaching: Subtle, But Profound

Restoring breathing mechanics doesn’t always require grand interventions. Instead, small, targeted cues may yield significant changes when applied in a nuanced and patient manner:

• Silent Inhalation: Slows down the pressure gradient internally, reducing overall accessory muscle overuse (neck, traps) and encourages proper poisoning of the diaphragm position.

• Pursed-lip Exhalation: Adds gentle restriction to exhalation, promoting abdominal wall engagement and facilitating infrasternal angle (ISA) variability.

• Relaxed Mouth Breathing: Decreases airway resistance, allowing for softer exhalations suited to individuals who already display high exhalation muscle activity (eg., Narrow ISA Archetype).

• Airway Position and Control: Head and neck positioning affects airway size. A neutral or “yawned” throat (i.e. CPR Position) can optimise the potential for airflow, reduce airway resistance, and restore a more “natural” breathing rhythm.

Above all, breathing cueing should remain exploratory. Over-coaching disrupts self-discovery. Instead, practitioners and coaches should encourage individuals to practice these activities themselves, honing the sensory awareness created, and to help guide individuals through the subtleties or respiratory restoration.

Breathing is a Master Variable

When breathing patterns break down, it’s rarely just a respiratory issue. The consequences can permeate postural, movement quality, nervous system regulation, and ultimately, performance potential. Breathing sits at the crossroads between structure, system adaptability, and athletic output.

By appreciating the deep interplay between respiration and biomechanics, we gain a powerful tool for not just movement alteration, but for improving systemic health. In an industry obsessed with external solutions - programmes, exercises, equipment, supplements - it’s worth remembering that often the most profound performance breakthroughs begin with someone as simple, and as complex, as learning to restore breathing variability.

AK.