Breathing is the part of Pilates people quietly decide to skip. It sounds like the soft bit — the thing you get to once the real work is done. In practice it is the mechanism that makes the rest of the method work, and it is the fundamental that takes longest to feel like yours.
Why breath comes first
Joseph Pilates put breathing at the centre of the method he called Contrology, and every school that followed kept it there. The reason is mechanical rather than mystical: how you breathe determines what your ribcage and abdominal wall are doing, and those two things determine whether an exercise loads what it is supposed to load.
Watch someone hold their breath through a hard repetition and you can see the cost. The ribs flare, the lower back gives up its position, and the movement gets done by something other than the muscles it was meant for. The breath is not decoration on top of the exercise. It is part of how the exercise is organised.
What lateral breathing actually is
The Pilates default is lateral breathing — sometimes called rib breathing or thoracic breathing. You direct the inhale sideways and backwards into the lower ribs so the ribcage widens, rather than letting the abdomen balloon forwards.
The point is that it lets you keep the deep core muscles working while you breathe. If every inhale pushes the belly out, you have to release the very muscles the exercise is asking you to hold. Rib breathing is the compromise that lets both happen at once.
Try it sitting down. Wrap your hands around your lower ribs, thumbs pointing back. Breathe in and try to widen your hands apart without your shoulders rising or your stomach pushing forward. That sideways expansion is the thing.
How to breathe in Pilates, step by step
- Breathe in through the nose. Send the air wide into the sides and back of the ribcage, not up into the chest.
- Keep the shoulders quiet. If they lift towards your ears, the air went to the wrong place.
- Exhale through slightly pursed lips. Let the ribs close down and knit together as the air leaves.
- Finish the exhale. Most people stop at about seventy per cent. The last part is where the deep core engagement shows up.
- Exhale on the effort, as a default. Not a law, but a reliable starting point.
- Do not hold it. This is the only rule that never changes.
Pilates breathing vs yoga breathing
This is the question people arrive with if they have done yoga, and the difference is real. A great deal of yoga uses diaphragmatic breathing — belly breathing — where the abdomen expands on the inhale and softens outward. It suits what yoga is doing.
Pilates keeps the abdominals engaged through the movement, so it cannot let the belly expand on every inhale. Hence the rib-focused pattern. Neither approach is more correct in the abstract; they are solving different problems. If you have a strong belly-breathing habit from yoga, expect this to be the thing that takes adjusting.
How the breath connects to your core
Here is the honest version of a claim that usually gets overstated. The diaphragm is not only a breathing muscle — it attaches to the lumbar spine and works alongside the deep abdominal wall, and the pressure inside the abdomen contributes to how stable the trunk is. That is anatomy, not marketing.
What has actually been measured is narrower. A 2023 study used ultrasound to track transversus abdominis thickness in 44 women across five common Pilates exercises, and found measurable recruitment of that deep muscle layer, with the largest response in the dead bug. That tells you the exercises do reach the muscle they are supposed to reach. It does not tell you that breathing alone will change your midsection, and anyone selling you that is going beyond the evidence.
Common Pilates breathing mistakes
Holding it. Almost universal under an unfamiliar load, and the one genuine error. If you notice you have stopped, you have found the thing to work on.
Breathing up instead of wide. Shoulders rise, chest lifts, ribs do nothing. Put your hands on your ribs and check.
Gripping to stop the belly moving. Clenching is not the same as engaging, and it makes a full inhale impossible. Those muscles should be working, not braced solid.
Letting the exhale run the tempo. If the movement is being driven by how fast you run out of air, slow the movement rather than rushing the breath.
Other breathing techniques you will hear about
Different lineages teach different patterns, and you may meet percussive breathing — the short, sharp exhales counted through the hundred — or a more even breathing technique held across several counts. Studios sometimes group these as pilates breathing techniques. Some studios use the word breathwork for standalone practice, which is a separate thing from the breath used during exercise.
None of this is worth worrying about as a beginner. The pattern your instructor cues in the room is the one to learn. If you want the wider context, breath is one of the six core principles of Pilates, and that post covers where the list came from and how the principles fit together — including the numbered "rules" that circulate online and where they actually originate.
Learning it with someone watching
Breathing is difficult to self-correct, because you cannot see your own ribcage and the sensation of doing it right is unfamiliar by definition. A hand placed on your ribs at the right moment does more than a paragraph like this one.
Sessions at True Form are private, duet or trio on the full apparatus — reformer, Cadillac and tower, Wunda chair, ladder barrel and mat — so the breath gets corrected as it happens rather than at the end. If you are booking a first session, how to prepare for your first Pilates class covers the practical side, and the classes page has the formats.
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Frequently asked questions
How do you breathe while doing Pilates?
Breathe in through the nose, sending the air wide into the sides and back of the ribcage rather than up into the chest or down into the belly. Exhale through slightly pursed lips, letting the ribs close down. As a default, exhale through the effort of a movement. The breath should be continuous — the one thing that is always wrong is holding it.
What is lateral breathing in Pilates?
It means directing the breath sideways and backwards into the lower ribs, so the ribcage widens rather than the abdomen ballooning forward. It lets you keep the deep abdominals working while you breathe, which is why Pilates uses it in preference to belly breathing during exercise.
How is Pilates breathing different from yoga breathing?
Mostly in where the air goes and what the abdomen is doing. Much of yoga uses diaphragmatic or belly breathing, where the abdomen expands on the inhale. Pilates keeps the abdominals engaged and directs the inhale laterally into the ribs instead. Neither is more correct in general — they are doing different jobs.
Should I inhale or exhale on the hard part?
Exhale on the effort is the usual default, because the exhale helps the ribs close down and the deep abdominals engage. It is a default rather than a law: schools differ, and there are exercises where the reverse is taught. If your instructor cues something other than the default, they have a reason for it.
Why do I get lightheaded or run out of breath?
Usually because the pattern is unfamiliar and you are working harder at breathing than at the exercise. Slow down, take fewer repetitions, and let the breath return to something normal. Persistent lightheadedness, breathlessness out of proportion to the effort, or chest discomfort is a matter for a physician rather than a cue adjustment.
How long does it take for Pilates breathing to feel natural?
Several weeks is normal, and it is usually the last of the fundamentals to click. The pattern competes with a lifetime of habit, so it tends to fall apart the moment an exercise gets difficult. That is expected rather than a sign you are doing it wrong.
Sources
- Transversus Abdominis Ultrasound Thickness during Popular Trunk-Pilates Exercises in Young and Middle-Aged Women (2023) Forty-four healthy women; TrA thickness measured by ultrasound across five named Pilates exercises. Cited here only for the fact that these exercises measurably recruit the deep abdominal wall. PubMed ID 37606405.
- Pilates Method Alliance — Pilates History The industry’s nonprofit standards body. Source for Joseph Pilates’ dates, the name Contrology, and the two books he published.