Not Just Breath

‍

Breathwork has exploded in popularity - and for good reason.

‍

Breathing is something we do thousands of times a day without thinking, but when we start paying attention, really tuning into how we breathe, it can become one of the most powerful tools for healing, regulation, and rebuilding trust in our bodies.

But here’s the catch: you can’t breathe well in a body that’s restricted, imbalanced, or disconnected - and that’s where many breathwork approaches fall short.

Let’s dig into a side of breathing that often gets overlooked: the physical structures that support it, and how neural imbalances and muscular restrictions can stand in the way of breathing with ease, depth, and integrity.

It’s Not Just the Lungs - It’s the Whole System

Breathing is a full-body movement pattern. It relies on a coordinated effort between the diaphragm (our primary breathing muscle), the intercostals and muscles around the ribs, the pelvic floor and abdominal wall, the spine, shoulders, rib cage and feet, and also the nervous system, which regulates all of the above.

If any of these elements are restricted or out of sync - whether from injury, stress, posture, or long-standing neural patterns, breathing becomes shallow, strained, or compensatory.

When the brain and body stop communicating smoothly, we can get neural imbalances. The nervous system controls every breath we take, often without us noticing. But when we experience trauma, chronic stress, injury or disuse, or even just our habit of poor posture, the neural pathways that regulate breathing can become disrupted.

This can lead to overuse of accessory muscles (neck, chest, upper traps), under-recruitment of the diaphragm, poor integration between breath and movement and a disconnect between breath and core stability.

Even if someone is consciously “doing breathwork,” their brain may be bypassing the diaphragm entirely, simply because the neuromuscular connection has weakened.

This is why neuromuscular techniques and corrective exercise are essential. You have to re-establish the brain-body link to make breathwork functional and sustainable.

Muscular Restrictions: Breath Can’t Flow Where the Body is Stuck

Tight fascia, restricted rib cages, weak hip flexors, or sub-optimal posture can physically block full breath expansion. If the ribs can’t move, or the spine lacks mobility, the breath gets compressed into the upper chest—and that fuels tension, fatigue, and nervous system dysregulation.

Common contributors to muscular restrictions include poor posture or prolonged sitting, injury recovery without full mobility return, shallow habitual breathing patterns and imbalanced movement training (e.g., strong abs but tight ribs). Without addressing these structural issues, breath cues like “breathe into your belly” or “take a deep inhale” may not actually be possible, no matter how well-intentioned the guidance.

Why Many Breathwork Sessions Miss the Mark

Many facilitators mean well, but if they don’t understand the physicality of breathing, they may be guiding people to “relax” or “deepen the breath” without knowing if the body is capable of doing so. This leads to frustration (“Why can’t I do this?”), reinforcement of dysfunctional breathing, overcompensation and strain, and emotional dysregulation instead of release.

Breathwork needs to be individualized, integrative, and body-aware, not just mentally guided.

What Real Breath Integration Looks Like

Breath is a bridge between healing and re-integration. It helps regulate pain, restore core control, and rebuild movement confidence. To breathe well, the body must move well. This is where clinical Pilates or corrective exercise comes into play. The individual focus of a one on one session where you can find those restrictions and learn how to free them and move better. Diving in to spinal and thoracic mobility work to allow the rib cage to expand fully, and functional foot to core integration with postural retraining to anchor the breath from the ground up. Improving how your feet connect to the ground, your pelvic alignment, and head stacking, can unlock fuller, more natural breathing patterns.

Neuromuscular breath retraining to reconnect the brain with the diaphragm and pelvic floor.

Myofascial release or manual therapy to free up stuck tissue. This creates the conditions for breathwork to be effective, rather than just effortful.

Breathing well isn’t just a technique - it’s a capacity. And like any capacity, it can be restored, rebuilt, and refined. But it takes more than intention. It takes awareness, structure, guidance, practice and support.

If your breathwork practice feels blocked, strained, or disconnected, start by looking at the body’s readiness. The breath can only go where the body allows.

‍