What Pilates understood about breathing

Breathwork certification programs have exploded in 2024 and 2025, targeting personal trainers, yoga teachers, and coaches across disciplines. What was once informal —something athletes did but rarely talked about — is now being systematized across fitness disciplines like cycling studios and HYROX training camps.

And one method in particular might have prepared millions of people to understand how much it matters: Pilates.

The Pilates advantage: breath as foundation

For decades, Pilates has been one of the few mainstream fitness methods that explicitly teaches breath control. Instructors cue inhales and exhales with every movement to shift away from shallow, chest-driven breaths. As students learn the Pilates breath, they start to feel how much their posture, stability, and muscle activation change when breathing becomes part of the work.

Much of what people describe as feeling “more toned” after Pilates comes from learning a breathing pattern that stabilizes the spine and recruits the deep core. And that awareness doesn’t stay in the studio. Once you’ve felt how breath reshapes the way you move, it may become easier to catch yourself slipping back into shallow, collapsed breathing.

Breathwork beyond performance

The breathwork showing up in running protocols and HYROX training camps isn’t just about learning to go faster — it’s about learning control. Runners use nasal breathing and CO2 tolerance training to manage fatigue. HYROX athletes use breathwork to regulate between efforts. Strength athletes use breath cues to maintain stability under load.

Breath affects heart rate, CO₂ buildup, recovery, and how much control you keep over your trunk and posture under fatigue. The control you build in training can then apply everywhere else — how you manage stress, stay composed under pressure, or think clearly during physical (and psychological) stress.

Why it matters

The shift toward low-impact, body-awareness training created space for this conversation. As more people prioritize moving better over moving harder, breathwork becomes less abstract and more functional. Pilates didn’t invent it, but it has helped normalize the idea that breath isn’t passive — it’s a tool. Now, more athletes across disciplines are applying it to their own training.