When I first started personal training in 2012, breathing drills were all the rage in every avenue of fitness. You couldn’t read a training-related article without the opening line being some derivative of, “Did you know that we take over 20,000 breaths per day?”
Belly breathing was the key to maximal strength, the diaphragm was the hidden muscle you needed to train and learning to fully exhale was the key to immortality.
The pendulum has swung. Now focused breathing drills as part of a warm-up seem to be the subject of many a fitness meme and the butt of many a joke delivered by fitness contrarians.
I just mocked clichéd blog intros, but now I’m about to hit you with my most-overused phrase: the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Breathing drills aren’t a total game changer, but have some utility for powerlifters.
I still use breathing drills at the start of nearly every training session for almost all of my clients. It’s more than just tradition at this point; I believe there’s true value in these exercises when it comes to setting the stage for a productive training session. Here’s why:
Mental Clarity
There’s a reason why breathing is an integral part of meditation, yoga and prayer. When we breathe deeply, focusing on the cadence of our inhale and exhale, we block out all the outside noise of our day. And there’s nothing that seems to negatively affect a training session like outside-the-gym stress: work, school, relationships, etc. If we can shift our mental state from stressed and overwhelmed to focused and present, no doubt we’re going to get better results.
By performing our breathing drills at the very beginning of our training session, we provide an opportunity for our lifters to shift their focus to their training instead of whatever else is going on in their life. For our in-person lifters, I verbally count out the cadence of their breathing, providing a metronome so they don’t even have to worry about the length of their breaths. All they have to do is breathe and relax.
Personally, I use my breathing drills to visualize whatever big lift I want to hit that day. My eyes are closed and I can picture myself successfully completing the lift in my mind. What the mind believes, the body achieves.
Transient Improvement in Range of Motion
I’ve seen lots of weird stuff improve a lifter’s range of motion. There’s the relatively normal stuff like foam rolling and stretching. Then there’s the bizarre stuff like shooting saline solution up one’s nose or getting a big two-handed slap on the back. I’ve personally gone from being unable to touch my toes moments before benching 405 pounds, only to immediately be able to touch my toes after the set was over.
These are all examples of how the nervous system controls our ability to express active range of motion. Most of us have the capacity in our muscle tissue and joints to go through large ranges of motion, but nervous system activity regulates our ability to access this range. We can manipulate our nervous system in many ways, but I’ve never seen anything so reliably improve range of motion with so little time investment or potential performance drawbacks like breathing drills.
Here’s the thing: all these changes are transient. You’re not doing to make lasting changes in your range of motion by breathing deeply a few times. However, you CAN make enough of a temporary change to train through a greater range of motion (often with less pain or discomfort), which can lead to retention of that range of motion. It’s the heavy lifting that gives our body a good enough reason to keep our mobility.
Here are a few drills I like to use and what movements they specifically improve:
90/90 Hip Lift (Hip Flexion and Internal Rotation)
All Fours Breathing (Shoulder Internal Rotation)
Deep Squat Lat Stretch (Shoulder Flexion)
It only takes 30-60 seconds to see some major improvements in joint range of motion. The same can’t be said for static stretching (takes a lot longer) or foam rolling (hurts a lot worse).
Context for Bracing
Even the most anti-breathing drill lifters and coaches will often concede that these drills can help teach lifters “where your abs are.” A common thread among these drills is to stack the ribcage on top of the pelvis using the abdominal muscles to create a better zone of apposition, which refers to the position of the diaphragm in relation to the ribcage. This position allows us to move our ribs more freely as we exchange air with each breath.
We create an optimal zone of opposition by internally rotating the lower ribs, flexing the thoracic and lumbar spine and posteriorly tilting the pelvis. These are the same exact motions that want to occur when we “brace” before a big lift. So even if not for all the aforementioned benefits, breathing drills help lifters understand what their ribs, hips and abs should feel like when they brace.
This is a rusty nail in the coffin of the idea that you need to arch your back when you squat or deadlift heavy. If you arch your back while performing these breathing drills, specifically any of the supine 90/90 ones, you won’t be able to exhale. You’ll feel it immediately and understand that until you move your spine and ribs into the right position, you won’t be able to feel your abs brace.
To bridge the gap between breathing and actually lifting, our belt basically acts like the floor in a 90/90 drill: it’s something to push against. Just treat your belt the same way you would the floor. Watch this video for a deeper explanation:
3 Tips for Better Breathing
By now, I’d like to think I’ve convinced you that breathing drills are a worthy endeavor. Here are a few quick tips to get more benefit from them.
Go Slow
The number one thing I coach during breathing drills is cadence: slow down. Exaggerate the length of your inhale and exhale. This helps us relax, clear our minds and actually give our ribs a chance to move. Short, intense breaths increase muscular tension and won’t do anything to improve range of motion.
A good general rule: use a 3-second inhale, hold your breath for 1 second, and then exhale for 3 seconds.
Silent Inhale, Gentle Exhale
I used to think you needed to breathe HARD during these drills, mostly because I was teaching them to athletes who carried a lot of stiffness through their lats and erectors, making it challenging to get the ribs to move without a forceful exhale. Yes, breathing out like you’re blowing enough balloons for a kids’ birthday party might move even the stiffest ribcage, but it doesn’t actually relax anything. We regain range of motion by relaxing, not stiffening, so instead:
- Inhale silently through the nose with your tongue pushed gently against the roof of your mouth until you can’t take in any more air.
- Exhale gently through your mouth like you’re trying to fog up a window or you’re having someone check to see if your breath smells. Don’t purse your lips and blow hard, but exhale until you feel your ribs move down and you’re aware of your abs contracting.
Use Your Environment to Set Your Position
Most of these drills share some common positions: spinal flexion and posterior pelvic tilt. It can be easier to attain these positions by using your environment. Lying on the floor with your feet on a wall or heels on a bench makes it much easier to push your back into the floor and achieve a good zone of apposition. Hanging from a bar uses gravity to assist you into spinal flexion to tuck the hips and stretch the lats. Use anything and everything at your disposal to achieve these positions.