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Backbends are complicated, requiring deep control over so many of the body’s systems. They can be uncomfortable and risky, and whether you have a naturally supple spine or a back like a piece of rebar, you still need technique to keep you safe as you progress.

Today I’m writing about the biggest technical obstacle to early backbending progress: breathing. I’ll cover why it’s so hard to breathe in a backbend and a few tools to find your inhale (hint: none of them are just yelling “BREATHE” at you while you bend).

Because breathing is one of our most important functions, the body has developed many different strategies to get air into the lungs. For optimal backbending we have to have excellent control of our breathing apparatus in order to choose exactly which muscles we are using to inhale.

Most folks do some form of belly breathing as our default setting. This means that as the diaphragm muscle drops down we make room for it by relaxing the meat corset muscles (all the muscles that support the midsection of the body) and allowing the abdomen to expand.

If you are a belly breather, you will find it extremely difficult to breathe in a backbend. When we extend the spine we also lengthen the front of the body, tensioning the entire abdominal wall. There is no room for it to expand in this position.

When your body is unable to belly breathe it will switch to the next most used option: neck breathing. This means that the muscles in the upper chest wall and neck contract to lift the rib cage up, making space in the lungs to suck in air. It is supposed to only be used for oxygen emergencies like sprints and running away from bears, but us modern-day stressballs tend to overuse it.

Alas, tightening up the neck and upper chest isn’t so great for backbends either. It adds a tremendous amount of strain to the pose and becomes completely impossible as we go deeper into our upper back mobility, especially when inverted like a chest stand.

What’s left are the two types of breathing that are least popular with today’s breathing population: rib cage expansion and diaphragmatic breathing. Most of us aren’t great at feeling or controlling these breathing patterns. Getting better at using our rib cage and diaphragm to breathe can transform our backbends.

If your belly can’t extend and your ribcage can’t lift up, where does the air go?

In part, this depends on your exact position and just how deep your backbend goes. If you are in a chest stand with your spine wrapped around your skull your breath will feel different than if you are in a baby cobra. However the general principles remain:

Learning how to expand the ribcage rather than the belly on the inhale does take some muscle and some practice. Here is a series of progressions that I use in class to help people increase their ribcage capacity, abdominal control, and get comfortable in uncomfortable positions.

These techniques don’t necessarily feel good immediately. I encourage practice over time with a slow progression as they become more intuitive.

Lying on your back on the floor, knees bent and feet flat, put both hands on the lower part of the rib cage. Start by focusing on the exhale, feeling the meat corset cinch up as the transverse abdominis and obliques contract. Then on the inhale, try to keep that contraction, slowing the expansion of the abdomen and trying to feel that the circumference of the entire rib cage is expanding, the fingers of both hands moving apart as the ribs get wider.

It is common at first to confuse a 360 degree expansion of the ribcage with lifting the lower ribs off the floor and arching the back, a sign of neck breathing. If you notice your mid back wanting to lift off the floor, slow down and notice where your intercostals are tight and unresponsive. Use the breath to stretch your rib cage from the inside out.

Pro tip: Restricting belly expansion doesn’t mean NO belly expansion. It will move some and that is fine. We just want to de-emphasize it in favor of other ways to make room.

We need to develop the abdominal strength to resist that belly inflation as part of our strategy to increase rib expansion. It is tempting to work ab strength by exhaling on our way up into a crunch and then inhaling as we come down and relax. This always ties our breath to our body position, which we want to de-couple for backbending.

Try holding your crunch at the top (you don’t have to come up very high for this to be super spicy) and finding your inhale. Your meat corset muscles are working hard to hold you up, helping you to resist the belly expansion. When you inhale, feel the sides and back of your rib cage take in the air, breathing down into the floor and using the inhale to come up a little higher into the crunch.

See how much ease you can find in your breath without allowing the meat corset to relax.

Side bending is an essential and extremely useful predicate to backbending. Not only does it help to mobilize the spine and engage all of the torso muscles that support us in a backbend, it also trains us how to breathe by inhaling into the ribs.

Standing with feet hip width apart, lengthen the torso and lean directly to the side, not allowing the body to collapse or bend forward. Hips move laterally in the opposite direction to increase the stretch along the outside of the body. Arm position is negotiable, I recommend starting with hands on hips and progressing to the much more difficult arms overhead.

In this position the meat corset is all the way on to support you, so you will experience that restrictive feeling if you try to belly breathe. The room for expansion is in the rib cage on the lengthened side. By finding a depth where you can hold it for a round of 5-10 breaths and gradually increasing the amount of space you can find in the side ribs, you are teaching your body how to use this space for air intake.

This is one of my favorite pre-backbend exercises, especially for folks who suffer from breathing restrictions when they backbend.

Breathing patterns are established based on more than just our anatomy. Our nervous system, emotional state, daily habits, old injuries, and stress levels all contribute to our body’s decisions about how to organize this essential function.

That means that increasing your body’s toolbox of breathing options isn’t just good for backbending, it is good for life. Changing the way you breathe can change the way you hold your body, address chronic tension, and just help you feel more relaxed… and who doesn’t need a little more relaxing these days?

Here is a little tutorial on breathing exercises to help you find a more relaxed way to hold your body as you move through the world.

I highly recommend choosing one of these breathing drills that feels challenging but manageable and practicing it for 5 minutes a day. Not only will it improve your ability to breathe in backbends, it could also help you feel a tiny bit more chill. When it comes to chill, every little bit helps.

Happy Bendings,

Kristina

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