We hear them all the time,
the cliche’d adages involving breath that all of us have been inundated with in the current health and wellness craze are limitless. They used to irritate me. I’d begrudgingly scoff at the instructor when their ‘inspiration’ for powering through a tough exercise was to ‘focus on your breath.’
Then I started training to become an instructor and guess what the first principle of Pilates is?! That’s right! Breathing. And guess who, after getting over herself, applied that principle with such vigor, that her oceanic wave of breath crashed into the eardrums of her classmates? That’s right! Me! Side note:There’s actually a funny story about this that you should definitely ask me to recite if you ever come to one of my classes.
The truth is, breath has healing, focusing, calming and empowering potential, but the intention for all those things has to be there. How do we add intention to our breath? We mentally find and physically turn on the muscles that make breathing happen.
For example, and I promise not to bore you too much with the details, did you know that the diaphragm is actually a muscle and not an organ? It works in tandem with your rib cage (intercostal muscles) for inhaling and exhaling to take place.
Subconscious breath is often shallow, stunting its potential. Engaging the intercostal muscles is a must for maximum performance.
Getting to it
How do you know if the intercostals are turning on or not? A good way to feel it is to tie an elastic band around your rib cage. As you inhale, you want to feel your ribs pressing into the band and expanding out side to side. As you exhale, you want to feel your ribs contracting, allowing some of the tension in the band to release.
Breathing this way requires focus and focus often gets lost as you’re twisting, bending, flexing and extending your body through the repertoire. Most of the time we’re closing our eyes, holding our breath and waiting for our instructor to make it to finish counting already.
Breathing this way also requires practice. One way I practice this breath off the mat is while I’m driving. Road rage often has me pressing the heels of my hands into the steering wheel with taught arms. This is a perfect set up for feeling the back of my rib cage expand and contract along my seat. Extending the work in this practical way helps to feel the soothing effect breath can have on tensed nerves and bring some validity to those annoying cliche’s.