Breathing and Pilates

When you think of Yoga, you think of many things and surely one of them is the breath. But is that the case with Pilates? Most likely when you think of Pilates, you think of; abs, machines, classes, good physiques, and maybe elongation, but do you really associate Pilates with breathing?

Let’s start by looking at the history of this topic to set the scene. I have been told by both 1st and 2nd generation teachers that Joe never really cued the breath. What most of these master teachers told me was that when someone asked Joe how to breath in an exercise, he would simply respond by saying; BREATH! So, from what I’ve been able to ascertain is that breathing, if not an essential part of an exercise, was not a prominent element to the move.

Of course there are Pilates exercises that have a major breathing component. Take the Hundred for example, this is fundamentally a breathing based move. Also the exercise Breathing is clearly a “breather,” as could be considered Spine Twist and Chest Expansion.

But why are only some exercises so heavy dependent on breathing while others omit it totally? In some cases, I get it. If you were to move at the speed of your breath in a “Vinyasa” style, exercises like Scissors, Criss Cross, and most of the Jumping Board series would turn the breathing style into a hyper ventilation. But curiously, that is just the few that I can think of off the top of my head. Actually, many Pilates exercises lend themselves really well to connecting a breathing element to the movement. However, in classical Pilates this is simply missing.

As a Yoga instructor, when I teach a lesson I always am giving constant breathing cues. Inhale, lift your leg, exhale, step through to runners pose, inhale lift torso and arms, exhale come into warrior one etc…

So in making a conscious decision to associate breathing with movement, I include breathing cues in my Pilates lessons. I also am a pretty active person myself as far as sports go. I love Powerlifting, as those of you who have read my other articles will know. Well, if you don’t know how to breath properly when deadlifting 500 lbs. off the floor, that weight just is not gonna move.

So lets look at this topic rationally. If my car stopped and I had to push it, would I inhale as I did so? No way! I would be blowing out like a raging bull! What if I yawn and expand my chest and arms, am I going to exhale? Hell no! I inhale deeply as my chest expands. How do we apply this to Pilates?

Here are some simple rules:

When exerting force exhale.

When absorbing force inhale.

Pretty simple right?

So let’s say you are doing the Shaving; exhale as you press, inhale as you bend. Hug; inhale open arms, exhale close. All this is fairly obvious. What about the tricky ones? Double Leg Stretch; inhale extend the legs (even though you are exerting force through extension), exhale bend the legs… why? Because the goal of the exercise is not just suspended elongation of arms and of the legs but contraction of the transverse abdominis to stabilise, which you can only fully do if you completely exhale all the air from your lungs.

There is room for interpretation in all this and a lot of ways to associate breathing and movement. What this article aims to do is make you conscious of the possibilities and to expand your practice by including more breathing into the classical method. I always ask myself when making adjustments or modernising the method, would Joe approve? In this case I believe he would say JA!