Pilates breathing

Breathing fully and deeply is a cornerstone of good Pilates technique so it's important to breathe correctly as you move.

How to breathe when you're doing Pilates

When you inhale...

1. Take long deep breaths in through the nose that expand your back and your ribs laterally (on the left and right sides of your body). 
2. Try placing your hands on each side of your rib cage, with your thumbs back and fingers forwards.
3. Feel your ribs pressing into your hands as you inhale.

​When you exhale...

1. Feel the ribs deflate and the abdominals draw in like a corset around the bones of your pelvis and lower back.
2. Visualise 'balloon lungs' and 'corset abdominals' to help you breathe correctly.

• Imagine that your lungs are like a balloon, inflating when you inhale and deflating when you exhale.
• When you exhale, feel the abdominals engaging so that they hug the body like a corset, slowly tightening. Or you can imagine the muscles shrink-wrapping around the bones of your pelvis and lumbar spine.
• It's important that you don't change the alignment of your bones as you engage your muscles.
  

Correct breathing helps build your abdominals

Learning how to engage your abdominal muscles as you breathe out is the first step towards building your abdominal strength, which you need to support you as you move your body, particularly your spine.

A healthy spine is able to maintain a variety of positions and move in many directions: 

• neutral
• flexion
• extension
• lateral flexion, and
• rotation. 

​The abdominal muscles work differently together for each position or movement. So it's important that you train them to support you when you're still as well as when you move.

If you're new to Pilates breathing

If you aren't used to Pilates breathing, you may feel light-headed or lethargic after your first few Pilates sessions. This is usually caused by toxins being released from your body so drink a few extra glasses of water on days you do Pilates.