Boo-yah—that’s how I kick things off. For many people, breathing patterns feel about as exciting as doing taxes, so I tossed in a catchy title to grab your attention. And yes, it worked. Don’t worry—the topic stays clean and appropriate despite the edgy intro.
Now that you’re here, let’s watch the video from the Miami Dolphin cheerleaders.
Breathing patterns have become a hot topic in the fitness world over the past year or so, largely thanks to the lifelong work of Dr. Pavel Kolar and the Prague School team. Their own words describe it like this: the nervous system runs the programs that control how we move, including posture and locomotion. This motor control is mostly set during the early years of life, so the Prague School focuses on neurodevelopment to assess and restore dysfunction in the movement system. It’s deep and innovative, and I’ve only begun to explore it myself.
There are other fitness professionals helping spread the knowledge in plain language, such as Bill Hartman, Charlie Weingroff, Jim Laird, and Dr. Jeff Cubos, who break down the why, what, and how of assessing and correcting breathing patterns.
A major theme from the Spinal Health and Core Training Seminar I attended was how breathing patterns relate to performance and to posture, as well as to chronic pain in the back, neck, shoulders, and lower extremities. In my talk, Spine and Core Training: From Assessment to Badass, I shared some of the general drills we’ve been using at Cressey Performance to teach better breathing.
Most people tend to chest-breathe, leaving the diaphragm and the inner core muscles underused. It’s easy to picture a playground scene where some muscles push others around, and the result is a jumble of breathing dysfunction. The goal is for the inner core muscles—like the diaphragm and lumbar multifidi—to work in harmony with the larger muscles so everything can perform properly.
We need a 360-degree approach to breathing, not just front-facing belly expansion. Start by learning to breathe into the belly.
Here are two simple drills to begin with:
1. 3-Month Pose
This drill comes from Mike Robertson. Lie on your back and focus on breathing into the belly while preventing the rib cage from flaring. I keep my hands at my sides to feel expansion on the sides and back into the floor. Breathe in through the nose, exhale through the mouth. A progression is to start with the feet on the floor, then lift the feet as you master the basics.
2. Prone/Alligator Breathing
Lie on your stomach and breathe into the belly, aiming to get the lower back to rise. Inhale through the nose, push the belly into the ground, and exhale through the mouth. For many, these two drills alone are an excellent starting point.
For years I’ve been taught to “push the belly out” when lifting heavy weights—especially with a belt. Bill Hartman recently addressed this, noting that pushing out can push the pelvis into excessive anterior tilt, which can hurt the lower back.
There’s a longer video where I go into more detail on retraining these patterns using a weight belt correctly and/or tennis balls (a clever idea from Jeff Cubos). It’s not just about anterior expansion; it’s about a 360-degree expansion to improve stability.
A few things to note:
1) I’m wearing a gray T-shirt with gray sweatpants—yes, I’m bringing gray on gray back. Recognize.
2) Rob, my demonstrator, could benefit from these drills to give his body the kinesthetic feedback to breathe through the belly rather than the chest.
3) I’ve been using these drills at the start of training sessions as part of an extended warm-up. I might lie down for 2–5 minutes and just focus on breathing. It may sound a little woo-woo, but it works. If you try these, you’ll likely feel a real difference.
Update: here’s the Bill Hartman video I referenced, where he discusses belly breathing and anterior pelvic tilt. If you watch it, you’ll see that Bill is pretty smart.
