How to Properly Breathe in Pilates and any Exericse

When I tell you to breathe it should be relatively uncomplicated… right?

In Pilates, there is an enormous emphasis on how we breathe during the exercise. The breath is the foundation to all body movements.  Yes, it is important for oxygenation during exercise, which I’m sure you guessed already 😉 However, it is way more beneficial than that!  

In this post, I’ve laid out how to breathe, why to breathe, and when to breathe.

You can also find this lesson on video in my Free Foundations Course, which is the info I usually charge clients $65 for! So sign up now and don’t miss out on that opportunity.

First of all, when we begin our mind-body exercise with intentional breathing, it helps us turn inward and focus on our body movements, making them more efficient. The intentional breath automatically turns our mind away from daily distractions and helps us to focus on our body in the present moment. Once we become “tuned in,” we bring more awareness to our muscle engagements and form during the exercises that ensue.

Try this:

Stop what you are doing right now, close your eyes, sit tall, and take an intentional inhale for a slow count of four and exhale for a slow count of four. (Literally count to four in your head while doing this.) Do this inhale and exhale for about 10-15 repetitions. Notice how the mind changes, it’s now ready to focus on a task.

How to breathe:

Next, focus on how you are breathing. In Pilates, we take an intentional breath through the nose, as if you are smelling a bouquet of a dozen roses! When exhaling, you want to exhale through pursed lips as if you are blowing out a cake full of 100 candles. The forced exhale is super important, keep reading and you’ll see why.

After that, focus on where your breath goes.  Place the hands on the side of the ribs, when you inhale feel the ribcage expand into the hands and spreading the seams of your shirt out on the sides. The ribcage should move out and in, laterally, similar to an accordion.

Another way to get tactile feedback, is to wrap an exercise band around the rib cage and focus on expanding into the band, the exercise band should expand and contract with the breath. You’ll see demonstrations of these two techniques in the foundations course.

When to breathe:

Every movement typically gets an inhale or exhale. The simplest rule of thumb is the exhale on the exertion.

During any resistance exercise, we typically exhale on the exertion phase of the exercise.  A simple example would be during a biceps curl, we exhale as the weight comes up towards you.

The exertion phase of the exercise can be a little bit more confusing later when the exercises are full body.  Once you being to practice regularly, you’ll start to get a feel for when the exertion phase is. Worst case scenario, your instructor will usually cue it 😉

Why proper breathing is so important:

Proper Breathing Fires up the Deep Core.

There are muscles I refer to as the, “deep core.”  The deep core muscles include:

• pelvic floor
• transversus abdominis (the deepest of the four layers of abdominals)
• multifidus

Those deep core muscles fire up during an intentional, forced exhale. The stronger the exhale the better.

The deep core muscles are key to pelvic and spinal stability, but only fire under low loads. Once higher loads are placed on the body, without prior gentle strengthening, these muscles cannot sustain their engagement.  It’s important to be patient and to allow these muscles to get strong, even though it doesn’t always feel like very much work. You’ll learn more about this in the transversus abdominis post where I’ll discuss how to fire up the transverses, keep it fired, and make it stronger!

Proper Breathing Balances Intra-abdominal Pressure.

One of the most important benefits of proper breathing during exercise is to maintain intra-abdominal pressure balance. The reason we exhale on exertion is because the diaphragm moves upward in the ribcage as we exhale creating more space in the abdominal cavity for all of the deep core muscles to engage. When the pelvic floor fires it lifts just like our breathing diaphragm. Similarly, when the transversus abdominis engages is flattens and draws closer to the body. Therefore, it’s best to exhale, allowing the diaphragm to lift upward to create space for this muscular engagement.

If you were to do it backwards, and inhale during exertion, we would have the pelvic floor lifting up, the abdominal muscles drawing in, and the diaphragm pushing down (on inhale).  Yikes, there would be a lot of intra-abdominal pressure created there!

I have an awesome demonstration of intra-abdominal pressure in the Foundations Course so sign up now, it’s free!

Basically, don’t be shallow.

Most of us are “shallow-breathers.”

Studies suggest that when the body isn’t receiving enough oxygen, our tissues don’t function properly. Consequently, we feel fatigued, mental fog sets in, and we experience increased stress. 

Additionally, proper oxygenation is the best natural pain management resource. (Why do you think you breath like a maniac when giving birth?) The body functions best with proper breath and manages it’s own pain when breathing is efficient. Let’s end the shallow breathing once and for all and get ourselves some O2!

Now that you know all of the ins and outs of proper breathing, let’s start applying it! Practice this efficient type of breathing and incorporate it in ALL of your exercise endeavors for highest efficiency of movement. The more you practice it, the easier it gets and becomes very natural during all of your exercises.

Want the video on this?

If you’re more of a visual learner like me, a video covering this topic is included in my 6 Day Foundations Course… which by the way, is FREE!!! (And, psst, usually $65.00!) It’s the first lesson video you’ll receive, so if you missed this course, sign up below!