General Pilates Education, Training Principles
My Client is Struggling to Breathe when Activating Their T-Zone
Correct breathing patterns are beneficial to achieving the best result from an exercise. But what should you do when your client is struggling to maintain the breathing pattern and also keep their T-Zone activated?
Let’s start by going back to the basics!
There is a lot to think about when performing Pilates exercises and clients, especially new clients, can easily become overwhelmed. If the breathing is too confusing for a client when they are starting out and their technique is suffering as a result, the most important thing is to prioritise the client’s correct technique, posture, muscle activation, and movement first, then add the breathing in afterwards.
Safety is paramount when teaching Pilates and as instructors, we want to avoid injuring clients. As such, for clients with poor technique, priority should be placed on safety (having correct posture, correct spinal position, good T-Zone and Oblique activation) before correct breathing patterns.
When your clients are doing these exercises, they may be struggling to activate their T-Zone. In this scenario, it is helpful to get them to focus on just the muscle activation, not the breathing pattern. It can also be great to give your clients the homework of practising their T-Zone throughout the day – at stop lights, when standing up from the office chair, etc. The core musculature responds really well to practise, and you’ll find that with some specific training, clients will become much better at turning their T-Zone on whilst moving and performing breathing patterns.
While clients are practising activating their T-Zone throughout the day, they should continue to breathe naturally. If clients are finding it difficult to activate their T-Zone while breathing naturally, ask them to relax and try activating only their T-Zone and not the surrounding muscles in their abdomen and chest. Sometimes clients try too hard to activate their T-Zone and ultimately tighten the surrounding muscles, which makes it hard to breathe. Clients won’t need maximum effort to tighten their T-Zone, it is a matter of concentrating hard, not trying hard.
Once you are confident that your client is safely and effectively performing the exercises, it can then be a good time to add in the breathing patterns.