Positional Breathing: Implementing Training Principles
IDENTIFY
Our job as fitness professionals is to determine what matters for our clients. To do that, we identify priorities, form guiding principles, and then put them into practice. Principles are what you believe in and teach to clients. They guide your choices in exercises, how you run training sessions, how you design programs, and how you communicate. Here are the first two principles I focus on:
1) All movement is shape change (influence from Bill Hartman)
2) Proximal position influences distal movement abilities
FORMULATE
Movement is about shape change. We change shapes by expanding and compressing parts of the body. Movement happens in areas we can expand and is limited where we have compressed. A athlete’s ability to move from expanded to compressed positions informs their capacity to change shape and express movement. Movement can go in many directions depending on position and breath. Some positions allow more expansion, increasing movement availability. Breathing supports expansion and compression: inhalation emphasizes expansion, exhalation emphasizes compression.
Position selection is the foundation of exercise selection. Positions such as supine, prone, side-lying, tall kneeling, half kneeling, staggered stance, lateral stance, and standing can magnify which areas of the body expand or compress. Other components include reaching one arm forward, reaching overhead, elevating a heel, or elevating a toe. Pairing phases of respiration with these positions further supports where movement is limited or enhanced.
The position of the proximal bones—like the rib cage and pelvis—greatly enables or restricts movement. Stacking the thorax and pelvis anchors movement. Respiration then creates expansion in the thorax and pelvis, opening joint spaces so the limbs can move with less pain. Lifting heavy weights can compress areas and reduce expansion, which can limit movement. Adding positional breathing work or coupling movement with breathing creates opportunities for expansion.
IMPLEMENT
Where is a good place to start with positional breathing?
1) Start with what you already do.
2) Apply the new lens to where you want movement to occur.
3) Label the exercise positions and pair respiration within those movements. Inhale when you want more expansion and exhale when you want more compression. Here are some examples of how I apply the two principles to exercise selection. Movement in each example can be supported or limited by changing position, breathing, or how you perform the movement.
1) SUPINE REACH
Lie on your back and reach both arms forward to expand the upper chest during inhalation. This position can also be used to teach stacking the thorax over the pelvis by cueing a hip tuck and a soft exhale to move the front side of the ribcage downward. Our “stack” is the setup position for your main lifts (squat, deadlift, etc.). Notice how inhaling expands the upper thorax and exhaling creates compression.
2) STAGGERED STANCE CAMPORINI DEADLIFT
The staggered stance enhances expansion in the lower, back-side hip of the trailing leg. The front leg pushes back to align the pelvis and thorax with the back leg. Reaching the opposite arm helps shift weight to the back leg. The expansive capability can be increased in the posterior hip with an inhale as you hinge the hip backward.
3) LOW CABLE STEP-UP
In this setup, the hip of the elevated leg is in flexion (expansive) while the hip of the grounded leg is in extension (compressive). An opposite-arm cable hold expands the backside of the upper back. As you push onto the ground to step up, the elevated hip may compress. At the bottom, use an inhale to enhance expansion in the posterior side of the flexed hip and the arm holding the cable; pair cues to emphasize expansion and compression. Try inhaling at the bottom and exhaling during the step-up.
4) HIGH HIP REVERSE BEAR CRAWL
The bear crawl is performed with the hips high and moving backward. This motion promotes expansion in the upper thorax and the posterior hips. You can coach continuous breathing through the movement or pause to inhale at certain points. It’s a fantastic warm-up.
5) TEMPO SQUAT PAIRED WITH RESPIRATION
The squat starts from a standing position. The assisted version includes a positional component with both arms reaching forward (like a goblet, Zercher, or safety-bar squat) to encourage a stacked thorax and pelvis. The movement requires both expansion and compression to descend and rise against gravity. This exercise helps teach changing levels with a stacked, vertical torso. As a general rule, inhale on the way down and exhale as you rise.
6) MEDICINE BALL LATERAL STANCE WEIGHT SHIFT LOAD AND RELEASE THROW
This exercise is done in a lateral stance, adding power to positional breathing work. Inhale while pulling the medicine ball across the body to bias expansion of the posterior hip of the outside leg. Exhale with the throw to bias compression as you drive off that hip. The movement also promotes rotation and power by creating expansion and compression in specific areas. For example, to promote right rotation, you’ll work with right anterior compression, right posterior expansion, left posterior compression, and left anterior expansion.
CONCLUSION
Positional breathing activities can improve how quickly you move, free up range of motion at the shoulders and hips, enable powerful rotation, and improve overall movement efficiency. My two training principles shape my approach, and I put them into practice through exercise selection, cueing, teaching, and pairing respiration with movement phases. The stacked position highlights a connection between the rib cage and pelvis (the thoracic and pelvic diaphragms) and can serve as a foundational position to support movement. I’m grateful to Bill Hartman for introducing this lens of movement. Use these strategies with your clients and you’ll likely see improvements in squats, hinges, running, rotation, and general movement.
