How should I breathe?

There's a lot of conversation in the postpartum world around breathing and 360 expansion. But, it can be super easy to overthink. Do I engage my pelvic floor? Do I exhale the ribs down? Should my belly move?

I like to think of the breathing as exhaling the ribs back versus down. This can be easier to sense in your own body if you are laying on the ground

• Inhale: through the nose. Your inhales should be soft, quiet, and relaxed. Aim for a 3-4 count. If you are laying on your back, feel and sense air pushing into all of the areas around your ribcage with your feet rooting into the ground.

• Exhales: out the mouth, aiming for a 4-6 count. The exhale initiates from the bottom (pelvic floor) on up, with tension building from the base of the pelvis to the hip bones, and towards the ribcage as it curves in and back. The pelvic floor does naturally recoil on exhalation, but early on in our postpartum journey we may need to be a bit more intentional and cue it. Since we are laying on the ground breathing, this would be a considered a low level of effort. Your pelvic floor contraction / kegel would be performed at 10-15% effort.

4 Step Breathing Process

Part 1: Tune into the breathing and where the air goes: Where does the air go on your inhale? Our core is a canister, and if we picture that circular shape, we can envision all of the places air can travel. After pregnancy, this 360 expansion can be very difficult. With ribs flared and abdominal muscles weakened after being stretched, the back, chest, and sides can get pretty sticky.

Often times, we may see air travel out on the belly only (belly breathing), or air being “pull in” with the neck and shoulders. Ultimately we are aiming for the 360 expansion for a more equal distribution of pressure through our core canister. We’ll also learn how to generate core tension via our exhale, get strong with a brace (important for strength training), and expand into those tight and sticky spots too.

In Part 1 we are simply tuning into where the air goes on our inhales to drive awareness. If being on your back feels a bit too challenging, side lying is also a great place to start.

Part 2: The Exhale - working on the length of your exhale

As we start working on the breath, we can think about elongating our exhalations. At first it may seem difficult to exhale in the 4+ second range. Why? If we are in that fight or flight / ribs flared position our body is essentially in an inhaled state. A good visual would be to stand and inhale and puff up your chest really big, then try to exhale. It may be a bit harder to do so.

That is the position our body is fighting against.

A few tips as you start part two:

• Stay calm! Exhales shouldn’t be forced. Let them flow. Inhale through the nose, exhale out the mouth and as you continue try to exhale a bit more air at a time. If you exhale so much that you feel almost a loud “ha” and crunch down from the top, you’ve done too much. OR if you feel the urge to suck air in on your inhale and gasp, you’ve done too much.

• Imagine pulling a stopper out of a soccer ball. The ball will slowly deflate. That’s how we can envision the exhale - a slow emptying from the body.

• If you are holding a strap around the body, as you exhale you can gently hug yourself on the exhale with the strap. Inhales are expansive with pressure putting gently into the strap, and exhale we pull away from the strap as the ribs come back.

Part 3: Resisted Exhalation (Core Engagement with your Exhale)

I’m often asked “what is the best way to feel my core?” A quick answer is…a full exhalation :) After we’ve learned to build awareness for our inhales / where air is going in our ribcage, and we’ve started elongating our exhales a bit more, we can start to generate some core tension via breathing.

Inhales —> Expansion

Exhales —> Compress

Upon initiating the exhale, we cue “exhale from the bottom up,” which means that exhale comes from the pelvis/pelvic floor. Placing a yoga block between the legs can be helpful here too for adductor (inner thigh) recruitment on exhalation. Inhales are down and out, pelvic floor lengthens, and exhales are from the bottom up.

Tension travels like a wave from the pelvic floor —> hip bones —> ribs come in and down —> exhale leaves the mouth.

Bottom up vs top down

With your exhalations, one thing we want to tune into is whether the exhale is bottom up vs top down. We should get a subtle sense of “drawing” in” towards midline / abdominal tension BEFORE the ribs start moving down and back. We want the exhale to drive the abdominal activation versus overusing the upper abdominals to drive the core activation (top down).

A fun visual for your exhale: One visual I love to play with on the exhales is to imagine a big sheet cake in front of you with 50 candles. When you exhale, you need to make that exhale last so you can exhale the candles out. If you exhale too fast/short, you may only get the candles right in front of you vs the entire cake.

Part 4: Bottom up vs Top Down and Breathing under a Brace Introduction

Lastly, we can bring more awareness to the bottom up vs top down strategy, as mentioned above.

A top down strategy can often happen with the upper abdominals like to take over or if the exhale is too rushed/forceful. Inhales through the nose, and exhales as if you are going to fog up a mirror or blow out a ton of birthday candles. The exhale should be long and gentle.

Exhale to facilitate the core vs using the core muscles to exhale

Over time the breathing will become more second nature. In part four I also dive into breathing for core tension AND taking subsequent inhales, which is the beginning to breathing under a brace. Check out this Instagram post!

Why does all of this breathing stuff matter?

Beyond pressure management and pelvic floor health, we can think of it from a movement and strength lens. The entire body is involved in respiration in some way, so joint positions are also going into relative expansion/inhalation or compression/exhalation with movement. If I lack the ability to achieve this, I may have movement limitations. If I cannot expand into one side of my body, it’s going to be hard to turn into that side. Example: If my left glute is really tight, it’s going to be hard to load into my left side.

TLDR: Without the ability to expand and compress, my body will find other ways to make movement happen and stand against gravity.

Breathing can feel tricky at first, but it is a huge part of postpartum recovery and return to sport. Additionally, you’ll see huge improvements in mobility, movement, and strength gains! I’ve felt it in my own body, and I know you will too <3

Bring it full circle with the video below.

If you’re curious to learn more about breathing, increasing mobility, addressing pelvic floor symptoms, and getting strong postpartum, I’d love to chat. I offer 1:1 training in San Diego and virtually, small group training, and DIY programs (more coming soon).

xoxo,

Erica