Issue #374 – Wednesday, June 29, 2022
360° Breathing in the “Stack” – by Patricia Medros
Diploma on the wall, certification passed, you know hundreds of Pilates exercises. You may even have years under your belt. But does that new client gut punch still jolt you when you realize, “There’s so much to do! Where do I start?”
Being a great teacher has less to do with knowing the exercises and more to do with preparing your client to do the exercises. Otherwise, we run the risk of reinforcing movement patterns in the Pilates studio that clients came to us to change!
ATTACK THE BIG ROCKS FIRST
BIG ROCK 1: Breathing/alignment
360° Breathing in the “Stack”
While it may be true that the ultimate goal in Pilates is to forget we’re breathing, we want to make sure when we get to that point, we’re breathing optimally.
That means breathing into the entire rib cage, not just the belly. Belly breathing helps us relax. That’s not our goal. In Pilates, we want to inhale into the upper chest to expand the sternal area or lift the pump handle, and into the lateral ribs to expand the bucket handles.
In other words, we want 360° breathing to expand any compressed areas of the thorax. On the exhale, we want to feel the contraction of the low deep abs to reduce rib flare and the extension moment of the lumbar spine to better align the rib cage over the pelvis.
Aligning the thorax with the pelvis — that’s what I call the “stack.” The stack improves the length/tension relationship in our core musculature boosting spinal support. It also creates a more dynamic relationship between the thoracic and pelvic diaphragms (pelvic floor) for better communication between them, improved intra-abdominal pressure and a more robust core canister.
Here’s how to do it.
Lie supine, hook lying, on a folded towel, about 1 – 2 centimeters thick, under the rib cage (not under the lumbar vertebrae). Keep the sit bones pointing straight ahead into your Achilles like two arrows, no tuck, no sticking the buttocks out. Place the right hand on the sternum and the left hand on the low belly. If needed, place a pillow under the head. Yoga blocks can support the elbows for ease (photo below).
On the inhale, direct the air into the sternum and feel your right hand rise slightly. This is breathing into the pump handle. At the same time, breathe into the side ribs at the base of the towel to breathe into the bucket handles. Keep low rib contact with the towel (without flexing the lumbar spine!) After the pump handle lifts and the bucket handles widen, the air will slowly flow to the abdomen and it, too, will smoothly and minimally rise.
On the exhale, gently open the mouth and pretend to softly “fog up a mirror.” You’ll feel the exhale make your deep low abs contract under your left hand.
Inhale as before.
On the next exhale, maintain a slight lower abdominal contraction (don’t release it) to facilitate expansion into the pump and bucket handles on the following inhale. Don’t force this retained low ab contraction and don’t do this if you have pelvic floor issues. But if you feel comfortable doing it, keeping a slight low abdominal contraction may help send the breath into the pump and bucket handles to facilitate 360° breathing and reduce belly breathing. Repeat.
TIPS: Teach “fog up a mirror” breathing before attempting this exercise by standing at a mirror and actually doing it. Bring your client’s awareness to the tension in the low belly (transversus abdominis and internal obliques) at the end of the exhale as the mirror fogs up.
Place a medium-sized rolled-up towel under the lumbar spine if they present with a FLATTENED lumbar position or are having trouble keeping the natural curve of the lumbar spine.
Shift the rib cage back/down into the folded towel at the level of the lowest ribs. This reduces rib flare in the front. When the ribs flare (chest juts out and forward) we lose the stack – the length tension relationship of the abdominals is compromised which hampers the ability of the abdominals to contract and the thoracic and pelvic diaphragms to optimally communicate.
Beware! Don’t let the pump handle “dump down” when making contact with the towel! THIS IS HARD!
Bring attention to the placement of the pelvis and explain this is a neutral position, preferred in Pilates. Neither the inhale or the exhale should not alter the position of the pelvic bones.
Retaining the low ab contraction during the inhale may reduce the amount of air flowing into the lungs at first. Once you have the hang of it, try breathing in for 3 counts and out for 5 counts. Slowly and with practice, you’ll be able to breathe in a longer, more gratifying, expansive breath and keep the low abs contracted at the same time.
Slowly replace the open-mouth “fog up a mirror” exhale with exhaling through the nose. Ultimately, we want to be nasal breathers.
Remember, this is a foundational exercise. It’s not the way we breathe walking down the street, shopping for groceries or playing with the kids. However, practicing this breath first in supine is the groundwork to progress it to standing and other Pilates exercises (see paragraph below). From those exercises, we transfer it to functional tasks like waiting in line and other daily activities. Ultimately, by slowly building on this supine stack 360° breathing exercise, our everyday, unconscious breath is expanded and our posture improved.
This prepares your clients for Pilates! The last thing we want to do as teachers is keep harping on alignment!
PILATES LINKS: Find the stack in all supine Pilates exercises from Footwork on the Reformer to the Leg Springs Series on the Cadillac. Boxing done seated on the Gratz Baby Chair with the hips externally rotated, feet supinated and the soles pressed together sets up the stack automatically. As does aligning the back of the head, thoracic spine and sacrum on the Pedi-Pull in Knee Bends. The same holds true for Pumping on the Gratz High Chair. Find the stack in the Short Box series by dorsiflexing the ankles and separating the foot strap like crazy with ram-rod straight legs.
The stack was called aligning the secondary PowerHouse (rib cage) with the primary one (pelvis) and was a pillar tenet in Pilates. It’s also referred to as the Box.
So the next time a client walks in because they’ve heard miracles about Pilates (and you!), start with this simple, yet definitely not easy, exercise. The breath work will naturally calm them (they’re nervous, too) through the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system.
With this one exercise they’ll learn the Pilates skills of:
1) How to breathe more efficiently;
2) What a neutral pelvis and deep low abdominal contraction feels like;
3) How to better align the rib cage with the pelvis for improved lumbopelvic stabilization; and
4) The air-traffic-controller level of concentration they need in Pilates.
Perhaps this last point is the most important.
The supine stack with 360° breathing becomes the base-line posture reference point when introducing movements and exercises. When you tell them to start with the “stack,” they’ll know what to do and you’ll be free to teach. Thanks to Katie St. Clair for opening this door for me.
In the next part of the series, we’ll learn BIG ROCK 2: how to assess through movement to pinpoint your client’s specific needs and the exercises you need to address this.
See you there!
Originally certified in the classical method by Romana Kryzanowska at Drago’s Gym, NYC, and Juanita Lopez at the Pilates Studio of the Midwest in 1999, my work is strongly influenced by mentors Bob Liekens, Anna Magnusson Sogell, DPT, Katie St. Clair, Alex Effer, and Madeline Black as well as certification in Functional Range Conditioning, FRC®.
A teacher trainer since 2005 (first for Power Pilates), I offer NCPT workshops and run comprehensive classical teacher training programs year long. Graduates have opened wait-listed studios in the UK, USA, EU and the Middle East. I have a fully-equipped classical “root top” studio in the heart of Rome and teach in English and Italian.
International presentations include PMA annual conferences and Balanced Body Pilates on Tour.
My mission is to help teachers deepen their experience and understanding of Pilates and how the body works when doing it.
If you’d like to dig deeper into the BIG ROCKS that take you from knowing a bunch of exercises to identifying what your client needs and giving them exercises that address those needs, come join me in Rome from July 24-29 or August 1-6, 2022 for the Get Out of the Pilates Sand Trap workshop.
From this 6-day workshop you’ll walk away with:
- Assessment skills to hone your eye to see what your client needs;
- The anatomy and biomechanics to understand what you see in the assessments;
- Primary keystone exercises to address the biomechanical needs of your client;
- A blueprint to bridge keystone exercises to Pilates exercises to program sessions; and
- How to identify common client compensations and the exercises and strategies to give clients better movement options.
All in a step-by-step format on what to do first, why, and how to do it.
36 NCPT Ces
patriciademoonmedros@gmail.com
+39 339 7538609