Short of Breath? One Incredible Exercise to Help!

In this episode, Farnham’s leading over-50’s physiotherapist, Will Harlow, reveals one major reason why you might be short of breath and a quick tip to help fix it!

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**Any information in this video should not be used as a substitute for individual medical advice. Please seek advice from your local healthcare professional before taking action on the information in this video.**

If you ever find yourself feeling short of breath then this video is perfect for you if you don’t know who I am my name is will harow and I’m the over 50s at specialist physio here at HT physio INF farum and today I’m going to be giving

You one great exercise to help people who get short of breath now shortness of breath can be caused by lots of different things it can be caused by lack of Fitness it can be caused by heart problems or lung problems and some of these problems physiotherapy can’t

Help but there’s another very big cause of shortness of breath that not many people consider and that is problems with your posture now there are four postural problems that can lead to shortness of breath and all of them involve closing down the lungs so we can’t breathe properly so the first one

Is tightness in the chest and tightness in the chest causes the shoulders to close up like this which decreases the amount that your lungs can expand when you breathe the second thing that can be a problem is what we call a thoracic kyphosis which is this kind of thing

Here where we’ve got a rounded shoulder and the spine is curved like that again that closes down the space where the lungs sit and it means they can’t expand properly now the third problem is a lack of chest or rib expansion so as we breathe the ribs have to expand like

This which allows them to the lungs to fill up and if our rib cage isn’t expanding properly again again we’re not going to be able to breathe fully and then the fourth postural problem that can cause shortness of breath is tightness in the abdominals so the abdominals are your muscles at the front

Of the T of the tummy here and if they’re tight they pull the front of your rib cage down towards your pelvis and again close you back down so there’s a few different problems there they all tend to come at once which is a good

Thing for us because it means if we pick one great exercise we can Target all four of those things so this exercise isn’t suitable for everyone so get checked out by your doctor before you give it a try but if you’re happy to give it a go and it doesn’t cause you

Any pain it can be a great way to open the lungs up and to breathe a little bit better so the exercise is really simple you can do it sitting or you can do it standing the sitting version is best for people who do desk work and I’m going to

Show you that first so what you’re going to do is sit nicely in a comfortable chair like this with a nice straight back just going to straighten our posture up to begin with so pulling our shoulders slightly back to a comfy position now take both of your hands and

Put them behind your head like this and if you if you’re in this position and you’re suffering with the problems I just mentioned you’ll probably find that taking your elbows back like that is quite difficult and the reason that’s difficult for you is because of tightness in your chest here so if you

Take your elbows back and out okay towards the the wall behind you you’ll notice you’ll get some kind of a stretch across the front of the chest here okay and you’ll notice that to do that I’ve had to correct the thoracic kyphosis like this it’s very difficult for me to

Do it like that I need to do it like that so we fix two of the problems in this position now if we can slightly lean back like that we’ll also extend the abdominals as well so we get a bit of a stretch there and then the final

Thing we need to do is expand the rib cage and we do that by breathing so when you’re in this position hold it comfortably and then you’re going to draw in breath through your nose right to the top and at the top you’re just going to take a little

Sniff and then let it all out like that okay now I wouldn’t do too many of these in a row because you’ll find that you’ll probably start to get a bit laded so have a pause for a couple of seconds then try again can feel your rib cage opening

Little sniff at the top just to get that last bit and then breathe out nice and slow and I recommend most people do about three to five of the in a row with a small gap between just to allow your head to recover and that helps to open

Up the rib cage after you’ve done five of those in a row you’ll notice that everything feels more open and if you practice that over a period of time you won’t get as short of breath when you walk and when you exercise now this can also be done in standing I’m going to

Show you how to do that now but if I before I show you that just so you’re aware 91% of people who watch this channel haven’t yet subscribed so if that that’s you scroll down hit the Subscribe button and then you’ll be the first to hear about our new videos as

Soon as they come out anyway let’s have a look at the standing version of that exercise now so for the standing version of this exercise you’re going to do the same thing so put your hands behind your head and stand nice and Tall bring those elbows back towards the wall behind you

Until you feel a stretch in your chest just keep yourself upright so as to get a stretch down here and then breathing deeply little sniff at the top and then breathe out again and you can breathe out through your nose or through your mouth whichever feels better and when you’re

Breathing you want to feel it some of it coming down into your tummy but some of it opening your chest up as well because that’s the posture we’re in at the moment we can take advantage of both of those areas okay little sniff at the top and then breathe out it’s nice to

Have a pause between reps I’ll show you from the sideways on so you going to have your hands behind your head like this bring your arms back stand up nice and Tall so you can feel a stretch in your tummy breathe deeply little sniff at the

Top and then breathe back out again like that so those are my great exercises for opening up the chest and improving your breathing I hope that helps you with your shortness of breath if it has please hit like on the video and leave a comment below because I love to read

Your thoughts and if you want to get more from me you can pick up a copy of my book it’s called thriving Beyond 50 and you can find it on Amazon using the link below anyway thank you so much for watching and I look forward to speaking you on the next one