Dr. Sarah Petrich shares how your posture can hold clues or signs that your breath is impaired or unbalanced. See Part 2 for “Objective Tests” Your Breathing Posture Is Impaired.
About Sarah Petrich, PT, DPT, PRC, NCPT:
As a specialist in Postural Restoration, Pilates, & Dance Medicine, Dr. Sarah Petrich provides physical therapy and Pilates training focusing on re-balancing posture, alignment and breathing for patients and wellness clients. When not in the clinic or on zoom, she's often traveling around the nation teaching educational courses to healthcare professionals, Pilates instructors and other movement specialists. You can find her and her courses on her website www.sarahpetrich.com or on Instagram at @drsarahpetrich.
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Just be happy with the a . Hi, I'm Dr. Sarah Petrich and I have to tell you, as a physical therapist, I do walk around and judge people all the time now with love of course, but I don't totally judge people all the time. And part of the , uh, part of what I judge is looking at people's posture and what it tells me about how they move, but also how they breathe . So yes, your posture tells me a little bit about how you breathe. So , um, keep in mind that even though you look at somebody and you see certain things, it's really just circumstantial evidence, but it's something to pursue and look at a little bit more. So , uh, first there's a few different visual signs that you might not be in the best posture for good breathing. So first things first, your profile over your rim cage . Okay , this is a rim cage with a very flat spine. Now the thoracic spine, which is this mid-back area, really shouldn't be straight. It really should be nice and curved and rounded. That does not mean you wanna be this hunched over with your pelvis in front of your rim cage. I call that collapsed kyphosis. And we would normally, in the medical jargon world, we'd just say it's increased kyphosis, but I like to say it's, it's collapsed because that's exactly what the , what those people are doing. You do want some kyphosis in this part of the spine. You want it to be rounded, just not too much. That being said, there's a lot of people walking around with really flat thoracic spines and here's what it looks like. All right , here's my , I just grabbed her and I was like, we need to show this off. So I saw this and I was like, yes, the world needs to see this, so see how she's got these winging shoulder blades? And most people will go, oh, you know, she's just really thin, which she is. Okay . Uh , and then maybe like some other people might go, oh, she maybe needs to strengthen , um, some muscles underneath those shoulders , um, to get the shoulder to lay more against tur thax. But I say, look at this thoracic spine in between there, this thoracic spine's really, really flat just like this model. And the reason is, is not just , uh, her scapulas, but it's really what's underneath the scapulas. And that's this beautiful , um, piece of bony artwork called a rim cage. And if that rim cage isn't supported by lungs that expand backwards and fill her lungs and move her ribs backwards, she'll get real flat here and start to push her ribs forward more. And that's because she's not breathing in the most efficient proper way. So thank you so much <laugh>. So , um, we do want a curve here and that's gonna be meaning we want ribs to be in a little bit different position. In another video we're gonna talk about how to attain it. Now some other things that you might see with people who are not breathing really well , um, besides a flat back is again, this kind of collapsed kyphosis. These people, when you lay them down on a table, you'll actually see, all of a sudden you find their ribs and they're pushing forward. And I'll show you a mini version of that today. Um, you can also see people with kind of rounded shoulders and sunken in upper chest. That's 'cause they're not getting good airflow in the upper part of their rim cage . Um, I already kind of mentioned ribs flaring out these front lower ribs. If you think of the profile of your rim cage again here, your front lower ribs really shouldn't be sticking out forward. They should actually be kind of tucked down and in like if your uh , dia or if your rim cage was like a bell , uh, when the bell swings backwards, those ribs would swing down in and back and create this more curved spine. And that's really the position we want a rib cage and a spine to be in. But if those ribs are flaring forward, I'm really suspicious and I'm starting to judge not just your posture but also your breathing. You'll also see the sternum and you can judge a sternum. Um, and how it's affecting your breathing too. 'cause all of these ribs connect into the sternum except for the false ribs. So if you look at your sternum, and you can do this at home, if you put your hands on your sternum, whether you're sitting or standing , uh, you've got the top of your sternum here called the manubrium and you've got the lower part of your sternum, the xiphoid process. If this xiphoid process is really far forward in front of your manubrium , we've got flared ribs and a flared sternum. And actually just as I talk here, I'm starting to get out of breath just speaking in this poor postural position, it's a lot better if I get the lower part of my sternum , uh, right above the top part of my sternum so that it's much more perpendicular to the floor. Uh , now if you're thinking about what about these people who are collapsed back, well they're deceiving you and you'll see the difference with their sternum when they lay down. They're really these people but they've collapsed back 'cause it's easier to breathe here and they're just these people in disguise. Now I'm gonna also have you , uh, meet Robert. Come on Robert. Alright Robert, we're gonna look at his rib flares and a little bit, but I'm gonna have you face the camera. Actually, you can also see asymmetries in a rim cage and that's because the diaphragm happens to be asymmetrical. So it's very common to see asymmetrical rim cages. And when I say an asymmetrical rim cage , you might be able to notice in the camera that his right shoulder is actually lower than his left and that's probably the most common. Asymmetry is right shoulder lower than the left. That being said, sometimes people's necks are really overactive and we'll pull the right side up and the left shoulder will be lower than the , than the right. So thanks for coming today, <laugh> . And we're gonna look at Robert's ribs a little bit more 'cause I'm gonna show you what they look like when he is laying down where you're gonna be able to see how his ribs flare up and forward. But also I'm gonna show you what also helps me figure out, okay, my eyes see one thing, but is it really telling me the whole story? And so there's some objective tests that I as a physical therapist can look at that I know they're gonna be impacted if you are a poor breather or not balanced in your breathing. So that's coming up. Thanks everybody for watching and I wanna do an extra special thanks to Oxygen Plus I hope you learn something. And if you'd like to find me, you can find me@sarahpetrich.com. S-A-R-A-H-P-E-T-R-I-C h.com. Or if you wanna learn more about Oxygen Plus you can find them@oxygenplus.com.