Earlier this year, I had several weeks of chronic back pain, right under my shoulder blades, and I could not figure out why it kept coming back. Even after a deep massage, the pain would return. Nothing fully reset the area.

Then I spoke with a friend who is a physiotherapist. She suggested something I had never considered: it might be my breathing. For whatever reason, I had slipped into bad breathing habits. I was no longer fully expanding my lungs, and that meant the muscles under my shoulder blades were not getting stretched with each breath. They were tensing up, locked in place.

I was also beginning to experience a bit of diastasis recti after recovering from a hernia. Once again, the culprit seemed to be my breathing,specifically, the fact that I was not exhaling completely. I was only working with the middle third of my lung capacity, never fully emptying or filling my lungs.

I was also beginning to experience a bit of diastasis recti after recovering from a hernia. Once again, the culprit seemed to be my breathing,specifically, the fact that I was not exhaling completely. I was living in the middle third of my lung capacity, never fully emptying or filling my lungs.

Whenever I sprinted or did intense cardio, the pain would ease, but I assumed it was because of warmed-up muscles. In truth, it was the breathing that helped. Deep, natural, forced breathing.

Since then, I have been consciously retraining myself to breathe deeper and exhale more fully. It takes a little time for the effects to become automatic again, but it works. Posture improves. Pain fades. Energy returns.

Bad breathing sabotages posture, energy, and muscular function. Fixing it changed everything.