Moving Into Harmony

MOVEMENT & BREATHING: HEALTH / PERFORMANCE PROGRAMS

health

Got pain? Want to be at your best? Get back out on the trail with the right help.

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Recently a prolific content producer on backpacking had a series of incidents that led to, in my observation, a cascade of the body’s inability to adapt well and heal itself. A myriad of symptoms have presented themselves that in his video published as a health update, he stated he is receiving medical care, they are not related symptoms, and most concerning were his comments he makes about his age, his body’s capacities and what he must now do in the face of his struggles.

To me this is a bad case of the blues, false belief and despair.

To me this is a case of not getting the right guidance or help, in looking wholesomely at him instead of the symptoms he is suffering with. It’s a different way of getting back on the trail with sound guidance from those who understand the inter-related body and the body-mind complex that loves to hike and backpack!

I’d like to breakdown what I saw in the video and where you might find better answers and individual solutions to meet your need and desire, instead of falling trap to false beliefs and into despair.

First major whammy: Trauma, Survival, Rescue & Breakdown

The inability of the body to handle the demands, pressure and lack of attention often leads to the body saying NO WAY in some way. Recovery from a survival situation requires proper down-time, proper guidance and follow through with the right help. The right help is not managing symptoms. The right help goes beyond just getting over an body shutting down event.

Also facing the unexpected breakdown of one’s own body is a challenge physically, mentally and emotionally. It’s even more difficult when you work with a trainer, or coach, and trust the program to be “fit” for the adventure. Being “fit” for an adventure has specific measures and require an individualized program, just like having the right gear for the adventure. If a program focuses mainly on strengthening your legs, core and “cardio” you are in for a huge disadvantage. This is because being capable and confident in the wilderness requires other variables that typical trainer styled programs don’t address. These include functional mobility and movement standards, physiological parameters of how your body adapts to stressors (and yes exercise is a stressor), your recovery and resilience capacities, your daily routine and habits, and the condition you bring yourself to train and to the trail. Let’s break these down a little bit to know what to look for in a skilled trainer or coach (or in my experience, someone with some therapeutic and wilderness experience).

Functional mobility and movement is about how the entire body collaborates for your time on the trails. This includes more than the legs. For example, it is well known in functional movement assessments that the shoulders and neck can limit the mobility in the hips, knees and ankles. May I add, flexibility is not functional when one joint is measured for a range of motion. Also the challenges of carrying a pack, and your spinal health, are more about diaphragm function than your core muscles of the abdomen. Also the diaphragm plays a key role in force transfer and lower leg fluid motion. In addition, I would hope the person you hire to help you get further well, at a minimum assesses your body behavior with the loaded pack you will be carrying.

Physiological parameters that are important for your confidence and enjoyment on the trail include the traditional – heart rate and intensity ranges, and also measures many do not test for (and don’t understand how to interpret the assessment). These include measuring gas exchange potential – without drawing your blood, circulation dynamics (why most rely on hot and stinky compression socks is because of this factor many long distance backpackers and hikers suffer from), adaptations to environmental stressors – cold and altitude, recovery and resilience, nutritional states (oral and gut health), sleep respiratory function, and nasal breathing optimization.

Recovery and Resilience do not happen by chance. The body needs to be trained and supported for the day in, day out rigors of multi-day adventures on the trail. Understanding your body’s signaling language, importance of sleep states, morning felt-sense measures, and mental resilience are essential to your adventure.

Daily routines and habits are essential to know before you get on the trail. For example if you sleep in, or eat late, you can not expect your body and mind (and your physiology) to just switch to a different pattern. I hope you know eating late and sleeping in are dangerous for your overall health and well-being, and even more so on the trails. Other routines include a flexibility, or warm up, prime before the trail day begins, and sometimes a warm-down, work out the kinks, evening routine goes a long ways to being on those long trail adventures.

And lastly, your current state of health, fitness and other performance based capacities as you enter a training program are critical to the right program for you. Having an understanding of what you are working with with your body and mind will make for a successful training program and time on the trail. This includes disclosing history – injuries (if you have injured an ankle there is more of a chance you will injure it again unless it is addressed functionally, not just the symptoms go away), health status (this includes any known conditions that may impact your training and your time on the trail – heart, lung, circulation, digestion, immune, joints and other tissues, sleep, mental/emotional). And knowing who you want to be when you hit the trail is also incredibly important, as getting the right help can include if a stress or strain shows up once your on the trail, you know what you can do to keep you on the trail.

Being capable in the back-country wilderness in challenging environmental conditions that force the body to adapt for function is not about a “suffer-fest.” Thrive over Survive any time out there! Surviving something does not make for a special-ness, or some superhuman capacity. Survival is actually a weakened, sub-optimal state often leaving a person not accessible to many factors related to rest, recover, restore and regain capacities that make one ready and “fit” for their next adventure.

Article by Shawn M Flot, MPT – Masters in Physical Therapy (1994). He is an experienced Certified Oxygen Advantage® Instructor, and Functional Movement Systems specialist. Combined with his 35 years of experience in Exercise Physiology, Physical Therapist for health and performance, and a dedicated Hatha Yoga practitioner, is making for a power-house to help many people succeed in re-discovering their own health and healing, being fit and living well for their adventures.


Nasal Breathing has greatest impact on your health & fitness sustainability

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If you did one thing to dramatically impact your whole body-mind’s health and fitness – make nasal breathing a priority. According to leading experts in the fields of ear/nose/throat, cardiopulmonary, psychiatry and physical rehabilitative health care, nasal breathing is by far the most impactful natural action one can incorporate to positively impact their health and optimize fitness.

Why?

Because over 30 vital actions of the body-mind rely upon proper breathing. If you are concerned for your health and fitness from the food you eat and gut health, sleeping well, sustaining mental capacities, being apart of healthy relationships, ease with sustaining sexual functions, exercise for all it’s benefits, and optimizing your health span, then it’s even more important to realize the only way for this is breathing through you nose during all daily activities* and night.
*exception – high intensity exercise (which is less than 5% of your daily life)

Here are some HUGE benefits of nasal breathing:

Nitric Oxide

Nitric Oxide (NO) is a bio-active gas that is produced by the lining of the para-nasal sinuses. It has a short existence, and is circulated to the lungs, heart and brain for the primary purpose of increasing oxygen delivery. Oxygen availability is the primary necessity of all organs, tissues and cells for healthy function.

Nitric Oxide was discovered in 1992 as a “miracle” substance naturally occurring in the human body that aid in all body function, health and longevity. And in 1998 scientist were given a Nobel Prize in medicine for it’s role in health, and now over 200 discovered benefits are known.

In addition, the benefits of nasal breathing far out-weigh any benefit of mouth breathing. Mouth breathing destroys the internal environment and endothelial layer – a mucousal membrane that hosts the microbiome (beneficial bacteria) responsible for turning inorganic Nitrates from the food we eat, primarily dark leafy green vegetables, into available Nitrite which is converted into available Nitric Oxide (NO) in the digestive tract. So a double benefit of nasal breathing incredibly impacts all organs, tissues and cells for a healthy life span.

AND you need the right amount of oxygen delivered to the blood vessels and organs for Nitric Oxide Synthase (NOS) to have the transformation for available NO. It’s a two way dependent process. And you need the right amount of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) to break the bond of Oxygen to Hemoglobin so Oxygen can be released into the tissues for the process. Over-breathing, very likely with mouth breathing, lessens the amount of CO2 for proper Oxygen delivery to the cells. This is respiration, cellular respiration, which is the life giving process and sustainability for health, fitness and performance.

Check out this article for more on Nitric Oxide.

Your Immune Function

The nose has an incredible innate immune capacities to ward off and mitigate incoming pathogens (virus and bacteria) and environmental toxins through its series of channels and membranes before reaching your lungs. There are many envelopes that have a specialized lining to help move and take care of things that come in that are not for you. The passage of air and particulates has a long ways to go before it hits the back of your throat, and is lined with the best defense for your health. It requires a healthy membrane, endothelial membrane, for these functions to be a full capacity.

Also your immune system is supported with the circulation of Nitric Oxide that is produced in the para-nasal sinuses. NO has significant viral and pathogen mediation properties, as well as inflammatory responses (which go hand in hand with immune function). See Nitric Oxide above for more information.

Hydration is important for a robust immune system. Nasal breathing has its own way of warming and moistening the air coming in. And you don’t get dehydrated as you would breathing through your mouth. In addition, to have resilience against environmental stressors – hot, cold, dry, smoky, pollution, etc. – the nasal membranes must be supported. See this article on Nasya practices, a 3000 year tradition daily health practice.

Optimizing Function of the Diaphragm

Your diaphragm is the most important muscle. Not only for respiratory function, or breathing, it is the nexus in all movement. And it is most effective when using the nose to breathe. Mouth breathing is primarily upper chest breathing for highest intensity activity, or maximal, breathing. Whereas nasal breathing because of the resistance in the nasal cavity engages the diaphragm more effectively thus accessing the lower lobes of the lungs for greatest oxygen carrying capacity. There is also better coordination of movement when the diaphragm is taking part in all functional movements.

Lower chest/lung breaths are most important because the majority of the gas exchange of oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) occurs in the lower lobes of the lungs. The use of the nose to engage the diaphragm the best also helps to mobilize the tissues and fluids of the lower lung chambers (pneumonia often exists in the lower lobes and is often seen greater in people who primarily breathe in their upper chest).

Not only for breathing, the diaphragm functions as a suspender for all the abdominal organs and tissue below, therefore it assists in:

  • optimizing digestion of food and water,
  • core strength and spinal health,
  • moving fluids back up to the heart (including venous blood and lymph),
  • massaging and mobilizing the organs for proper circulation to and from organs,
  • regulating pressures,
  • regulate fluids to and from the brain,
  • and more – see this article for more on diaphragms’ role in health and fitness.

Mental Health

Nasal breathing has an overall calming affect when the breath is soft, quiet and regular rhythm. Breathing through the nose allows for a depth of the breath, accessing the lower lobes of the lungs, producing a grounding, centered feeling that gives feedback to the brain of ease and calm. On the other hand, upper chest breathing (and mouth breathing) signals to the brain as state of alertness, fixation, tense feelings, and unable to rest and recover.

Nose breathing provides best function with the diaphragm created more of a balanced state in the nervous system. Many will tell you it stimulates the vagus nerve. This may be true, and what part of the vagus nerve is being stimulated? I believe it brings back a state of balance, where the body-mind complex has more options and less reactivity to any experience. It can aid in the vehicle, your body-mind complex, not speeding on high RPMs all day long diminishing any chance of accessing your healthy capacities. Nasal breathing allows for a slower, smoother and more rhythmic state of being that open the range of possibilities for your health.

If you have any interest in eating well, absorbing nutrition, eliminating waste, sexual function and reproduction potentials, mental capacities for success in school or work (or play like succeeding in a game requiring strategy and thinking on point), memory, sleep and more the daily active life balancer within the autonomic nervous system will support these very important functions. My teacher always said “you can eat, pee, poop, or make love when you are running from the tiger.” Stimulating the vagus nerve helps regulate the systems that rely on the autonomic nervous system. Your body is connected and inter-dependently supported in more ways than we can realize.

Releasing you from Chronic Stress

When you breathe through your nose easily you feel begin to feel an downward movement of support. You will feel the lower ribs move as you engage the diaphragm with nasal breathing. This massages the organs where emotional and mental stressors are stored. It mobilizes the spine in a snake like motion, giving the regulator in the brain a sense of connectiveness and access to all limbs for optimal movement in daily life. Stress creates withdrawl of vital circulation (and oxygenation to our furthest points) often resulting in cold hands and feet, thus giving information to the brain of an unsafe environment which then creates a cyclic downward spiral in one’s health – stress kills.

With a downward feeling, it produces a dropping down of your low center of support. This has it’s own inherent medicine that stabilizes many functions of the body. It gives feedback to the brain and nervous system as a true supportive center. It is the best counter-balance to stress, helping you to lessen the tendency to react intensely with uprooted-unsupported feelings that create more stress responses with your life.

Here is a recording of a public talk I gave from the Ashland Food Co-op’s educational event.

Article by Shawn M Flot, MPT. He is an experience Certified Oxygen Advantage® Instructor. Combined with his 30 years of experience in Exercise Physiology, Physical Therapist for health and performance, and a dedicated Yoga practitioner is making for a power-house to help many people succeed in re-discovering their own health and healing, being optimally fit for their adventures and living well.