Breathing has gotten a lot of attention in the last few years, which is fantastic – I’ve read about five books on it myself and everything I’ve applied has made a real difference for me and for my clients. BUT most of the conversation skips the part that actually matters for training, which is what your core is doing while you breathe.
Here’s the problem. Most people hold their belly in and breathe up into their chest. As a bodybuilder that was just my default for years. You breathe in, your chest rises and your waist gets smaller. You breathe out, your chest drops and your waist gets bigger. That’s completely flipped, and it teaches your core the absolutely wrong thing to do.
Your lungs are shaped roughly like a pyramid – the bottom is much bigger than the top. So if you breathe high into your chest you’re filling the small end, using the small weak muscles in your neck to do it, and getting tired for very little air. It’s actually a sign of respiratory distress when someone is breathing from up there. Breathe down into your belly and lower ribcage instead and you get far more air for far less work.
How to find it. Put your hands on your waist, fingers pointing forward and thumbs pointing back, high enough that they’re butting up against the bottom of your ribcage. Breathe in. Your thumbs should move away from your fingers, your hands should move away from each other, and that whole circumference should get bigger. That’s a 360 breath.
Then breathe out and feel everything come in. You should involuntarily contract your abdominals and your pelvic floor. Think of it starting as a small Kegel – the pelvic floor contracts, the waist cinches down, and your abs wring the air out of your lungs like a corset. Then they relax, you inhale, you expand, and you do it again.
That’s how your muscles are supposed to work with correct breathing, and it isn’t just a gym thing. Sitting here at the computer you should be breathing low into the belly and squeezing up and out. As you exercise it just gets more intense – your diaphragm and abs work harder to pull air in and push it out, rather than you panting into your upper chest.
One more thing, because I made this mistake myself. After an earlier breathing book I bought an inspiratory muscle trainer, which is basically a tube that’s hard to breathe in through. Then I learned what I just described to you, watched myself in the mirror, and realized my shoulders were going up with every breath. I was training my neck muscles. I had to dial the resistance all the way back and start over asking a different question: what’s the most I can do while breathing with my diaphram?
The book I’d point you at is Breathing for Warriors by Belisa Vranich. It’s mostly aimed at athletes but it applies to everything.
This came from our community Q&A inside Stronger. Faster. Younger. Come ask your own.
