Episode 4: The Scoop on Pilates Breathing
Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the breathing involved in Pilates? Or maybe this is something that you have never even tried. Today I am going to break it down and simplify it for you!
Listen Here:
Spotify | Apple | Google Play | Amazon Music
Show Notes:
Importance of Pilates breathing for overall health, nourishing the body, and elevating the mind and spirit.
Background on Pilates breathing, also known as posterior lateral type breathing or ribcage breathing.
Benefits of deep breathing, including oxygenating the blood and eliminating waste products from the body.
The scoop (S-C-O-O-P) is the foundation of Pilates breathing and focuses on drawing abdominal muscles in and up toward the front of the spine.
Creates a strong center for all body movements.
Activates deep pelvic floor and transverse abdominal muscles.
Ribcage breathing involves inhaling and expanding the ribcage while engaging the diaphragm.
Practice by placing hands on the sides of the ribcage to feel the expansion and contraction.
Combining the scoop and ribcage breathing creates a stabilizing breath, beneficial for the body and spine.
Key Takeaways:
The scoop is the most important part of Pilates breathing to master initially, as it builds strength in the body's center.
Ribcage breathing is the second aspect to learn, focusing on inhaling and expanding the ribcage.
Both components of Pilates breathing contribute to overall health, wellness, and a strong center for body movements.
Focus on learning and practicing the scoop and ribcage breathing, but don't overthink it—allow your breath to evolve naturally over time.
Transcript:
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Better Than a Pill. I'm Cari Vann, and I'm so grateful and excited to be here again to share with you today. In today's episode, I'm going to be giving you the scoop on Pilates breathing, and I'm going to share my experience on how I approach helping people best get this breath into their bodies.
To start off with just a little background information. First off, the Pilates breathing is sometimes referred to as posterior lateral type breathing or ribcage breathing. And it's not a breath I normally use unless I'm doing Pilates based work, because it's a more focused and muscular type breathing in which your movement is closely coordinated to it. There are even some exercises that use an action called spine rolling, and these exercises are good for really cleaning out the lungs. There's also a part of the breath called the scoop, and we're going to get into that a little bit later in the episode.
The human body needs oxygen, and our lungs are responsible for feeding the oxygen to the body cells through the bloodstream. When you breathe properly, you have more stamina, you feel more alive, more alert, and you're better able to concentrate. When we breathe in, our lungs fill with air and extract oxygen from it. When we breathe out, we push out the carbon dioxide, and this eliminates waste products that the body does not need. So deep breathing, such as that done in Pilates, helps to oxygenate the blood and nourish the body's tissues. And this also contributes to not only our overall health, but an elevated mind and spirit as well.
Joseph Pilates, the creator of Pilates, shared in the book he wrote, Return to Life through Contrology, that breathing is the first act of life and the last. Our very life depends on it. Yes, the breath is powerful and it's a life-giving force, and it's a crucial part of our overall health and wellness. Joseph Pilates also shares in the same book that when breathing correctly, we should completely exhale and inhale, always trying to squeeze every atom of air from our lungs until they are almost free of air. He shares if there's one thing we should do, it is to learn to breathe correctly, and he sees lazy breathing as a handicap to our longevity. And I 100% agree he is right. We can do so much good for our bodies through proper breathing.
Now, when you're first learning to breathe fully and correctly, the impact of so much oxygen on your bloodstream can feel really unnatural. And this is normal. It can cause lightheadedness, and it's similar to being in a high altitude or up in the mountains. And just rest assured that this will eventually disappear. And over time, this usually doesn't take long, but it's just something to be aware of. And I get this all the time. I'm feeling lightheaded or I've been breathing. And if you're not used to getting that much oxygen into your body, it can be really over intoxicating at first.
When first learning the Pilates breath, I have found it really helpful to break it down into two phases. Why? Because the breath can overwhelm people. It can be a stumbling block. It's complex. And really, if you try to do it all at once, it's really overwhelming. And I know this to be true in the countless people I've worked with, but also in myself. When I was first learning the breathing, I did not find it valuable just to spend hours trying to focus on getting it down perfectly or trying to overthink it. In my mind, the bottom line is that it will evolve naturally over time.
So when you're learning the breathing, the most important part of the breath to learn first is the scoop. Yes, the S-C-O-O-P part. It is the most important piece, and it's the most easiest part of the breath to really grasp. This part of the breath is really the action of drawing your abdominal muscles in and up toward the front of your spine. And it not only decompresses your spine, but it helps to create a strong center. And a strong center is the foundation for all of our body's movements, and it's often referred to as centering. A strong center is going to give you better control over your body, like I said, all of your movements. And it starts with the scoop, okay?
So when it comes to the scoop, it's easiest to learn this when you exhale. For example, just put your hands on your lower belly and cough or laugh really hard, and you'll feel those deep belly muscles working. Now, if you try the same thing and you exhale through your mouth, you will also feel this activation. So when you're learning the scoop, you're going to be exhaling. But when you're scooping, you're going to be pulling your lower belly back. You're scooping it back and you're activating and turning on the muscles of the deep pelvic floor and transverse abdominal muscles, and the transverse abdominal muscles are the deepest layer of your abdominals. This is the first act in activating your center.
Now, just to be clear, the center is the area between the ribs and the hips. Sometimes it's called the powerhouse or the corset or the core. And the center is just another term for it. And that's the term that I like to use. So we are learning to engage, turn on your center, your transverse abdominal muscles, and that actually stabilizes your trunk before any movement occurs. And it's the only abdominal muscle, the transverse abdominal muscle, that is involved in moving the torso in every direction.
Now, for the majority of people, these muscles are really weak and they're not used to being engaged or activated. And a couple of things. For this reason, I have found it really helpful to have people hold the scoop for at least three to 5 seconds when they're exhaling or greater, to really get that connection and activation. Not only that, but when you are doing the scoop, it is actually an isometric contraction. So it's not like you're moving your arm or your bicep. So we need something to contract it against and that's what's really going to help us to feel the muscles. And that's why I love the Pilates circle. It's one of my favorite pieces of equipment. Its true name is called the Magic Circle. And the circle is just so valuable because it helps you to feel muscles even more. And I love to have people use it in their hands. Unless of course, there's some type of shoulder related issue as well as between the knees if possible to start. And it really teaches you so much more in other things as well.
So there's just so much value in just getting the scoop to start with, activating that center and then building up that strength. Now the second part of the breathing is sometimes a little harder to get, but it's called the rib cage breathing aspect. And that's when you are inhaling your intercostal muscles, the muscles between the ribs, they contract, lift and they widen your rib cage. So in this step, you are expanding your lungs and you can feel that your ribs are expanding to the sides and to the back. And if you even imagine like an accordion player opening up the accordion, that's kind of a visual of what's going on with the rib cage. Now, at the same time, we're still on the inhale when this is happening, your diaphragm, which is the dome-like muscle at the bottom of your lungs and that separates your chest and abdominal muscles, contracts downward, pulling your lungs with it. This creates a vacuum that pulls air into your lungs. So that's the inhale.
Now, when you exhale, you're actually bringing the ribcage back together, or what I like to call knitting the ribs back together. And again, you could imagine an accordion player bringing the accordion back, and that's what's going on with your ribs. And as you exhale, the diaphragm relaxes and expels air from the lungs.
When you're learning this aspect of the ribcage breathing, I find it really helpful to feel it by even putting the hands on the sides of the ribcage to feel what's going on. That proprioception, that touch is just really helpful. Making that connection makes it so much easier. And then again, this is just something the more you practice, it just gets into your body. It's not something that you've got to get 100% perfect. It just happens over time and just having that mental image and then what happens next is you eventually practice combining those two phases, the ribcage breathing and the scoop together. This is an extremely muscular and stabilizing breath, and it's so good for our bodies, our back, and definitely protecting the spine and so on.
So, like I said, in my opinion, the most important piece of the breathing to get in the beginning is that scoop. I always tell people not to overthink it, just let it happen naturally. The rest of the breath will evolve over time, and it does. And you can always improve upon it with your focus and concentration.
So this is how I look at it and this is how I teach it and how I develop the breath and how I help many other people get it into their bodies. To recap, today we talked about the Pilates breathing and we focused on its importance to our overall health and wellness. We broke down the importance of breathing in general and then broke it into segments of the Pilates breathing: the scoop and the ribcage breathing aspect, with an understanding that it will evolve over time and that the scoop is really where we want to start, because that's most important to feel with all of our movements, and that's going to build strength in our center.
I hope you all enjoyed this episode and found it helpful. Remember, we do new episodes every week on Wednesday, and I look forward to having you join me again.
