How breathwork can improve your strength and mobility!

Introduction: Breathing Is the Beginning

Breath is often taken for granted. It is automatic, ever-present, and so foundational that we often forget its power. In movement practices like Pilates, Barre, and even traditional strength training, breath is the unsung hero. Your life begins with your first breath and ends with your last—a bold statement, yes, but one that reminds us of the sheer importance of this biological rhythm. While some fitness classes may not dedicate lengthy segments to breathwork, it's always there: shaping, informing, and supporting every motion. And when done intentionally, breathwork becomes an engine for strength, mobility, and even internal organ health.

Let’s explore how breath can become your secret weapon.

1. Breathwork as a Tool for Strength

Let’s start with the basics. When you breathe deeply and intentionally, your diaphragm and core muscles work in tandem. In Pilates, we emphasize 360 breathing—breathing that draws air deep into the lungs, expanding the ribcage laterally and into the back body. This type of breathing recruits the transverse abdominis, pelvic floor, and obliques—the core of your core.

Engaging these muscles with breath builds inner strength, creating a more stable foundation for outer strength. For instance, in Barre classes, when you exhale during exertion (e.g., a lift, pulse, or plank), you access more power. Breath provides rhythm, which improves coordination, and breath drives engagement, which improves muscle recruitment.

Over time, practicing breath-coordinated movement helps:

Improve posture and spinal alignment
Prevent injury by supporting the low back
Enhance muscle activation and endurance

2. Breath and Mobility: Creating Space from the Inside Out

Breath isn’t just for strength; it’s a vehicle for mobility. Think of a deep breath as internal stretching. With each inhale, your ribcage expands, your spine subtly lifts, and space is created between joints and tissues. With each exhale, you have the chance to settle, deepen, and elongate.

Deep breathing enhances mobility by:

Relaxing overactive muscles
Improving circulation to tight tissues
Encouraging the nervous system to shift from “fight or flight” to “rest and digest”
Facilitating deeper stretching and safer range of motion

In practical terms, a student who breathes deeply during a seated forward fold will experience more release in the hamstrings and hips than someone holding their breath and muscling through. In spinal rotations, breath can act as a lever to help the thoracic spine rotate more smoothly.

Intentional breathing helps us soften into movement. It brings a sense of flow, grace, and release.

3. The Diaphragm-Liver Connection: Why Breathwork Supports Organ Health

Here’s where science and holistic wisdom intersect beautifully. The diaphragm, your primary breathing muscle, sits just above the liver. With each deep breath, especially when you use diaphragmatic breathing, your liver is gently massaged.

This rhythmic compression and decompression has real health benefits:

It supports liver detoxification and lymphatic drainage
It stimulates circulation through the portal vein
It helps reduce stagnation, which can happen when we’re sedentary or shallow-breathing

In Eastern medicine and somatic practices, the liver is associated with anger, frustration, and energy flow. Supporting the liver with breath can be both a physical and emotional release. The gentle massage of breath may not be as flashy as a detox juice cleanse, but it’s a sustainable, daily ritual that helps the body process and heal.

The best part? You don’t need to lie down in meditation or chant to experience these benefits. Simply incorporating deep, diaphragmatic breaths into your Pilates mat practice, your morning stretch, or your walk around the block can make a meaningful difference.

4. My First Lesson in Diaphragmatic Breathing

When I was younger, I took singing lessons with a teacher who had a beautifully simple way of teaching us how to breathe from the diaphragm. She’d lay us down on the floor and place a giant book—a phone book, encyclopedia, or dictionary—on our bellies. Our job? Breathe in deeply enough to lift the book, then control the exhale slowly enough to let it gently fall.

At the time, it felt like a quirky exercise, but it planted the seed of breath awareness early on. It was my first tactile experience of diaphragmatic breathing, and I’ve never forgotten it. That moment taught me how breath could be physical, visible, and powerful—something that continues to influence my movement and teaching today.

5. Breath as the Teacher: Awareness, Control, and Healing

Your breath is your first feedback tool. If you’re holding your breath during a challenging movement, it’s a sign to check in: Are you over-recruiting certain muscles? Are you moving too fast? Are you pushing through pain?

Breath reveals our unconscious patterns. For many people, shallow chest breathing is a default mode—a result of stress, poor posture, or trauma. Teaching clients (and ourselves) to breathe more fully is not just a fitness goal but a health intervention.

Tools to retrain breath:

Try a breath-focused warm-up in Pilates: lying supine with knees bent, hands on the ribs, practicing lateral expansion.
Cue breath in every major movement: Inhale to prepare, exhale to engage.
Use tactile props: A small ball or yoga block between the thighs while curling up can help connect breath with deep core engagement.

As teachers and movers, we can use breath to:

Cue better alignment
Slow down rushed or sloppy movement
Offer clients a moment of rest or reset
Empower people to connect with their own bodies in deeper ways

6. A Final, Controversial Thought: The Marker of Life

It might sound dramatic, but it’s true: Your life begins with a breath and ends with one. In between, how many breaths do you take without noticing?

Even in classes where breath isn’t the focal point, it’s still the undercurrent. It dictates the tempo, shapes the energy of the room, and defines your ability to be present. When you start to work with your breath rather than around it, everything changes. You gain clarity, connection, and a sense of power from within.

Whether you’re cueing dozens of clients in a Barre class, guiding one-on-one Pilates sessions, or simply showing up on your mat, breath is your anchor. It is not just the thing that keeps you alive. It’s the thing that can make you feel more alive.

Conclusion: Breathe to Move, Move to Breathe

So the next time you're teaching or training, remember this: Breath is not an afterthought. It is a primary driver of strength, mobility, and vitality. It supports your liver. It engages your core. It creates calm. It fuels presence.

Integrating breathwork into your practice isn't about adding complexity. It's about uncovering what's already there. A quiet, steady rhythm that supports your best movement, your deepest healing, and your most grounded self.

So inhale with intention. Exhale with power. And keep moving—one breath at a time.

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Clarity before Creativity

By Leslie Guerin • February 4, 2026

Why the Future of Movement Has to Change

Behind the Cue: Hold Still

By Leslie Guerin • February 2, 2026

Stability Is Not Stillness — It’s Organized Effort “Hold still.” If you’ve ever taken one of my classes, you’ve heard me say it. And if you’ve ever felt it, you know it isn’t about freezing. Most of the time when a teacher says “hold still,” it’s because something else is happening. Maybe bouncing, gripping, bracing, or compensating of some kind. Something is moving that shouldn’t be. But “hold still” does not mean “be still.” Those two cues might sound similar, but in Pilates they mean very different things. Be Still vs Hold Still Be still is a pause. It’s a full stop. It’s often used so you can feel one specific thing: “Be still… feel your ribs.” “Be still… notice your pelvis.” “Be still… now breathe.” It’s about attention. Hold still is something else entirely. Hold still means: Stay organized Stay lifted Stay connected Stay breathing You are not passive. You are not collapsed. You are actively maintaining shape while something else moves. It is one of the most advanced skills in Pilates. Why Teachers Say “Hold Still” We say it when we see: The pelvis shifting The ribs popping The shoulders helping Momentum sneaking in The body is trying to get the job done by recruiting the wrong helpers. So “hold still” is really a request for clean movement : Let only the part that is supposed to move… move. Everything else must work just as hard, just not by changing position. Side-Lying Leg Lifts: The Perfect Example Let’s take one of the most deceptively simple exercises in mat Pilates: Side-lying leg lifts. On the surface, it looks like this: You lie on your side You lift the top leg You lower it But what is really happening is far more complex. This exercise is designed to balance one side of the body on the other . The top leg moves. The rest of the body holds still. Not rigid. Not collapsed. Not gripping. Holding. What “Hold Still” Actually Means Here While the top leg lifts and lowers: The bottom side of the body is working. The bottom rib cage is lifted off the mat, creating space The waist is long, not sagging The spine is stacked, not rolled back The top hand in front of the body is not there to lean on, it is there to quiet the rocking forward and backward. The pelvis stays level. No tipping. No hiking. No rolling. Everything that is not the leg is holding still... but nothing is relaxed. This Is Why Breathing Matters If you stop breathing, you are not holding still. You are bracing. Holding still means you can: Maintain the shape Keep the effort And still let the breath move That’s where the deep stabilizers do their job: The abdominals The muscles along the spine The lateral hip The inner thighs The breath becomes the test: Can you stay organized even while something else is moving? That’s real control. Why This Cue Changes Everything “Hold still” teaches the nervous system something incredibly important: You don’t create strength by moving more. You create strength by controlling what doesn’t move . That’s how: Hips become more stable Backs become more supported Movement becomes quieter and more powerful It’s also how injuries are prevented, especially in people who are flexible, mobile, or used to muscling through. So Next Time You Hear It… When I say “hold still,” I’m not asking you to freeze. I’m asking you to: Stay lifted Stay connected Stay breathing Stay honest Let the right thing move. Let everything else do its job. That’s Pilates.

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