Earlier this year, we took some time to explore what makes pilates special when comparing it to other workouts. Every type of exercise has its own areas of focus and speciality, but when it comes to pilates, one of the ways we can define the magic sauce that has people flocking to this workout are the five essentials of pilates as laid out by Stott Pilates.
As shared by Lung.ca “we breathe in and out about 22,000 times a day.” But what’s actually happening in our bodies 22,000 times a day then? To briefly summarize, each time you breath in, your diaphragm contracts, increases the space in your chest cavity, and your lungs and chest cavity expand. All of this then leads to air being sucked into your nose or mouth, then going down your trachea and into your lungs, then airsacs. This effort fuels us with oxygen and removes carbon dioxide from our blood.
All that considered, you may still be thinking, ‘Okay, I get it. Breathing is important. But why do I need to think about it?’ After all, you’re breathing right now and you’re probably not putting that much conscious thought into it. Or at least, you probably weren’t before you started reading this article about breathing. But the reason we spend time on our breathing in pilates class is that the way we breathe can have an impact on our bodies and our workouts.
Pilates was created with breathing in mind. The creator of pilates, Joseph Pilates, had a personal interest in breathing because of his childhood asthma and respiratory illnesses. And while you might know how to breathe already, this isn’t exactly what we mean when we talk about breathing in pilates class.
The main type of pilates breathing, referred to as lateral breathing, to put it simply refers to inhale in preparation and exhale as you push into your exercise. Looking a little deeper, pilates breathing encourages you to breath in through your nose, but to draw your breath into your ribcage instead of your belly and then to breath out through your mouth.
Research suggests that practicing this type of breathing may have a positive effect on our workouts. Studies have found pilates breathing leads to higher muscle activation in the abs and back, and another suggests it can help regulate the nervous system and help you deal with stress and anxiety. Sung-Tae Kim and Joon-Hee Lee’s paper even considers that using this sort of breathing while performing lifting tasks “may reduce the risk of trunk injuries”.
There’s also a handful of other pilates breathing techniques, including transverse abdominis breathing, breath-to-movement connection, and mindfulness & relaxation breathing, all of which share in common a need to focus on how you are breathing and how it’s affecting your body and movements.
To learn more about how you can use pilates breathing to improve your workout and your life, stop by a pilates class at a studio near you.