Master the Art of Belly Breathing: Boost Your Tupler Technique® Results in 2024

In preparation for learning how to do the exercises, we first need to go over the proper way to breathe, which I call “belly breathing.” Yes—you even need to relearn something as natural as breathing!  But the thing is, belly breathing IS the way a human body naturally breathes at birth—all babies breathe this way—yet somehow we start doing it wrong somewhere in childhood.

The incorrect way most people breathe is called “breathing in opposition.” That means as you take in air, you contract your belly inwards. As you let out air, you push your transverse muscle out. Think about it: that’s the force of air from your lungs on the connective tissue with every single breath you take in this manner. No good. I’m convinced that there’s a linguistic connection in doing this, at least for English speakers. People associate the word inhale with bringing the transverse muscle in. I’m here to scrap that notion.

Here’s what I want you to imagine:  that your lungs are balloons and your belly is a paper bag. As you bring air into your body, you fill up your lung balloons and they expand. Expanding the balloons with air expands the belly. As you take each breath, think fill with air, like  big balloons. Your belly goes out, also like a big balloon. When you engage in belly breathing, it’s a gentle, air-driven expansion of the belly, a forward passive movement which doesn’t put force on the connective tissue.

As you empty the lungs of air, think about deflating the balloons within your torso. That’s when your transverse muscle should come back towards your spine. Then give it a little squeeze. Many people forget the second part of the breath and just exhale not using their abdominal muscles.  It takes practice to make this your default way of breathing, but I think you’ll find that it’s actually very comfortable once you get the hang of it. Many clients ask me,  if they should be holding their abdominal muscles in when they are walking because they are moving. When you are doing aerobic activities such as walking you need oxygen and belly breathing is the best way to get it.  You are actually strengthening your transverse muscle with every exhale you take when you bring it to your spine and give it a squeeze! There are actually centers and health-industry professionals devoted solely to teaching people how to breathe in this manner.

There are a lot of benefits to belly breathing, or aerobic breathing as it is often called, besides avoiding unnecessary force on your connective tissue. For one thing, belly breathing uses the entire lungs, which allows for greater oxygen intake. (Breathing in opposition only uses the top part, a small percentage, of the lungs.) This alone has some pretty great implications. More oxygen translates to more energy and heightened ability for the body to relax and keep stress at bay. It’s also been linked to the body’s increased ability to heal, lose weight, and for people to maintain greater mental focus. Additionally, a surprisingly high volume of toxins is optimally cleansed from the body through the breath, so it makes sense to use your full lung capacity to do this, rather than just a small portion of it.

The list of benefits goes on, but in terms of healing your diastasis, aerobic breathing also creates a greater awareness of your transverse muscle with every breath.  That makes it a lot easier to keep your transverse pulled in while carrying on with your daily activities. This kind of breathing automatically sets up your transverse to be in the right position for doing exercises.

To learn more about Diastasis Recti & the Tupler Technique® read this article: DIASTASIS RECTI RESEARCH AND EVIDENCED BASED EXERCISE PROGRAM

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Watch the short video below to know what a diastasis is.