Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in….
This was the start of a childhood song I listened to. A song I played many times while working out.
I never gave much thought to the song nor the way I breathed but as I sit here a different man, I look back and laugh at how many things were hidden to me throughout my childhood.
All I knew is that I could never blow up a balloon or do a cartwheel.
Both were my arch nemesis as a child.
How about you?
What kind of breather were/are you?
Were or are you a chest breather?
Were you or are you into gymnastics?
I was definitely a chest breather, who just happened to speak a mile a minute just to get out a few words and gasp onto a few more oxygen molecules to push out a few more.
I never knew how much of my life was defined by the way I breathed.
How about we tackle breathing today and leave the cartwheel for another day?
Some of my best childhood memories were laying on my dads chest listening to him breathe in and breathe out. I was very young at the time and my reoccurring nightmares sent me sneaking into my parents bed. I would army crawl my way in-between them and fall alseep to the sounds of him breathing. He naturally used his diaphram, allowing his abdomen to fill up with air on his inhale making his belly rise and then breathe out.
It was comfy and I would ride the wave.
My daughter on the other hand was born when I was learning how to intercostal laterally breathe. She rode a different kind of wave than I did.
One that was choppy as my ribs would pop in and out as I breathed.
When I injured my spine the biggest telling sign of my imbalances were that my ribs were popped out.
I could barely breathe.
My attention span became really short and all my movements became slow.
In the library where I spent most of my time reading up on many of the modalities of rehabilitation, there were many chapters discussing the way to breathe.
All had different views.
I had to test them out to see which one was best.
All had different elements which did different things but most of those I wasn’t interested in. As I settled on pilates I thought it would be best to focus on developing my pilates breath. Even in pilates you will find many different ways to breathe but after reading Rael’s book, I thought his method made the most rational sense. I used his theory and tweaked it a bit as I read up on so many other forms.
Joseph Pilates emphasized that the breath is the fuel for the powerhouse.
Little to no fuel, equals little to zero activation of the powerhouse.
To increase your fuel tank it takes practice and direction.
The longer your breath, the longer you have to fire muscles that make up the power house.
This is key as you want your power house engaged to create stability.
For example a chest lift (crunch, ab curl, mini sit up) has a breathe pattern of inhale, breathe out, lift the chest, inhale, exhale bring the upper body back to the starting position.
In diaphragmatic breathing you allow the belly to rise first which means that the powerhouse wouldn’t be engaged when you are inhaling at the top part of the chest lift. You would lose your powerhouse engagement as well as your stability. If you intercostal laterally breathe you fill the lungs first by expanding the chest thus allowing your powerhouse to remain engaged.
Forget the exercises let’s just talk about breathing. If you pay attention to most, the chest doesn’t lift nor expand too much. As a man who spent most of his youth bench pressing, my pectoralis major and minor were very overdeveloped resulting in shortened muscles that restricted my chest expansion. My kyphosis on top of this created an environment for short, shallow chest breathing. As we move into a kyphotic age which is full of people with shortened chest and shoulder muscles, it seems that opening this area up would be the most rational direction. At least for me I desired the opposite of diaphragmatic breathing.
So this is the direction I headed in. Let’s observe how I did this.
When I laid on my back I first focused on inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the nose. Full breath in and full breath out. Nothing happened in my core because all my muscles were relaxed. This is not a pilates breath but I wanted to “feel” the difference.
After a few reps I switched up to inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. As I kept exhaling out until the last atom of air was expelled from the lungs I could feel my transverse abdominis kick in. This is the deepest abdominal muscle, the one responsible for engaging the corset, the powerhouse.
This felt good.
I wanted to lengthen my breath and pressurize my abdominals so I made a small hole with my mouth, like pursed lips. I consciously breathed out a consistent stream of air, like letting air out of a tire. This is something that Pavel Tsatouline recommended for kettlebell training. His reasons were different than mine but I thought that it could apply to my pilates breath and it did. My breath became much longer thus allowing me more time to activate my core muscles.
Now I needed to work on my inhale to lengthen my breath that much more.
I began to raise my sternum to the ceiling, allowing the back of my ribcage to settle into the floor as my ribs expanded sideways. This inhale brought more air into my lungs, allowing my chest to expand and my pectorals muscles to stretch. In for fours seconds, out for eight seconds.
My breaths became longer right off the bat.
This routine instilled new natural habits in the way my mechanics worked.
My lungs were working to its max capacity.
My chest loosed up and I was able to start to correct my kyphosis.
Step by step, pilates was creating change.
I was able to start to blow up balloons for my daughter.
She began to sleep on my chest to ride my new wave.
Life had a new meaning, and my daughter created a new purpose for it all.
I could finally blow up a balloon.
This was much easier to achieve than doing a cartwheel but much more life changing and satisfying.
The best part is, anyone can do this at any age.
It just takes time and practice.
Something that costs nothing.
Go try!