Working with your breath to achieve better movement in Pilates by Anneli McCullagh
One of the key principles of Pilates is learning to work your body whilst aided by your breath.
How can breathing help with exercise?
The way your body works is that when you inhale, your lungs expand, and your diaphragm should
lower towards your belly. Logic therefore follows that in order for the lungs to expand fully, it is
helpful if the rib cage can also expand - and it does so by allowing the intercostal muscles between
your ribs to extend.
Try it:
Have a stretchy band, or a long cord, around your back and holding on to the ends at the front.
Cross the band in front of you so it feels slightly tight around the bottom of your rib cage.
As you breathe in, try to expand the band by pushing your bottom ribs into the band.
You may feel that nothing moves, indeed that your shoulders lift but nothing changes with your ribs.
Try to relax your shoulders, and don’t lift the collar bones either as you inhale.
Stay calm and don’t try to force it, keep it as a gentle inbreath rather than the longest one you can possibly do.
As you breathe out, feel that the ribs gently draw together the band contracts.
How can this be used in Pilates?
You may know that with Pilates the focus is on working your limbs and spine from a strong core, a
strong centre - this includes your abdominal muscles.
In order to maintain your stomach muscle activation throughout a movement - rather than losing
that connection because you are breathing into your belly - you breathe in wide into your rib cage
on the easier part of the exercise, and exhale to really feel your core stabilising you during the
harder part.
An example can be a curl up - here’s how you think in a Pilates curl up:
With hands under your head, breathe in to prepare
Breathe out as you lift your head and shoulders
Breathe in to lower your body back down.
It is your stomach muscles that contract to lift you up, and the same muscles that lengthen to
control your movement back to the floor - hence, you want those stomach muscles to carry on
doing their job on the way down as uninterrupted as you can by your breath.
Why don’t I work on an inbreath, or indeed hold my breath, as I feel stronger then? Pilates is about
creating movement rather than bracing. In Pilates, we try to create a fluid movement, and crucial to
this is to keep your breathing flowing too.
The breath and its use in movement is just one of several principles that was created by Joseph
Pilates. I will explain more about other principles in the next newsletter!