The short answer: Your ribcage should move every time you breathe. On the inhale, your diaphragm flattens, your belly rises and your ribs expand in all directions (often called 360 breathing). On the exhale, your belly falls and your ribs come back down and in. Belly breathing without any ribcage movement, and neck breathing, where your neck muscles do the lifting, are both less effective ways to get air in.
When it comes to breathing, there’s A LOT of information out there…
So, I want to help simplify things a bit.
How Breathing Works: It’s All About Pressure
Breathing relies on a change in pressure.
Air will move from high to low pressure.
So when the pressure in the atmosphere is HIGHER than the pressure in our body, air will rush into our lungs.
When the pressure in the atmosphere is LOWER than the pressure in our body, air rushes out.
This is why we NEED our ribcage to move, because it helps create this pressure gradient.
What Is 360 Breathing (Diaphragmatic Breathing)?
Now let’s talk about DIAPHRAGMATIC BREATHING, or as I like to call it, 360 BREATHING. This is how you would breathe during a breathing exercise (not necessarily the quiet, automatic breathing you do all day).
When we inhale, our diaphragm will contract and flatten. This causes us to visibly see our belly RISE.
This should be immediately followed by our ribcage expanding in all directions (360 degrees): front, sides and back.
The expansion of the ribcage REDUCES the pressure inside the chest, resulting in air rushing to fill our lungs.
On the exhale, our diaphragm relaxes and returns to its “dome” shape. This causes our belly to fall.
Our ribcage compresses and gets smaller, causing the pressure inside the chest to increase, resulting in air leaving our body.
This beautiful process is what allows gas exchange to occur, meaning our tissues can receive oxygen and remove excess carbon dioxide.
To simplify:
When we inhale we want:
Belly to rise
Ribcage to expand
Lungs to fill with air
When we exhale we want:
Belly to fall
Ribcage to compress
Lungs to deflate
How to Do 360 Breathing
Want to try it? Here’s a simple way to practice:
Get set up. Lie on your back with your knees bent, or sit tall, and wrap your hands around the sides of your lower ribs with your thumbs toward your back.
Inhale through your nose. Let your belly rise, then feel your ribs widen into your hands: front, sides AND back.
Exhale slowly through your mouth. Let your belly fall and feel your lower ribs move down and in. You’ll often feel your side abs (obliques) gently turn on at the end.
Pause. Hold for a few seconds at the end of the exhale before your next inhale.
Repeat for 4–5 breaths, keeping your neck and shoulders relaxed.
(Having a hard time feeling your back ribs move? Try it in child’s pose with your forehead on a block, like the photo at the top of this post.)
Common Breathing Cues, Explained
You may hear a lot of additional breathing cues, so let’s discuss a few of them:
1. “Pause at the end of an exhale”
I often cue this in class, so what does it mean?
The cue is something like this: Inhale through your nose, take a long slow exhale through your mouth, pause 4 seconds at the end of the exhale.
The pause can help ensure you’re getting a FULL exhale, and actually allowing your ribcage to move into a position of exhalation. This means the lower front of your ribcage moves down and in (the opposite of a “rib flare” position).
This position is important because it gives your diaphragm a nice dome shape to work from, allowing it to pump more effectively.
Pausing at the end of the exhale may also help calm your nervous system (your “rest and digest” parasympathetic system), which shows up as increased heart rate variability (HRV).
2. “Keep your abs ON as you inhale”
This cue can be a little more confusing because normally you’d want your abdominal wall relaxing as your lungs fill with air…
BUT, the goal of this cue is to help people who tend to JUST move from their lower ribs, and have a hard time expanding their upper lungs.
When we take a full exhale during a breathing exercise, we should feel our obliques turn on, as they assist in pulling the ribcage into a position of exhalation.
By continuing to maintain some tension in the obliques during the inhale, we can keep the lower ribs down, sending air to expand the upper chest wall.
This can help improve shoulder mobility by changing how your shoulder blades sit on your ribcage. It can also help calm down a neck that is maybe working too hard to “pull” air in.
3. “Don’t lift your chest”
So this cue has caused many people to incorrectly believe they should be belly breathing. But let me explain…
Belly breathing occurs when our belly rises on an inhale and falls on an exhale, but there’s NO ribcage movement. This is ineffective breathing.
Yes, we do want the belly to rise and fall, but it MUST be accompanied by ribcage expansion and compression.
Neck breathing occurs when we have a hard time moving our ribcage or effectively getting air in. As a result, on an inhale, our neck muscles LIFT our upper ribs in attempts to create ribcage expansion and pull air in…
But this is also ineffective breathing. We want our diaphragm pump to work so our neck can relax.
The cue “don’t lift your chest” is meant to prevent people from over-using the neck to pull air in.
But don’t be fooled…
This doesn’t mean your ribcage shouldn’t move. It absolutely should. We just don’t want it to happen by way of the neck.
Breathing… clear as mud, right?!
Want to go deeper? Read Do I Need Pelvic Floor Workouts? and Why I Stopped “Bracing” for Deep Core Work.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is belly breathing the same as diaphragmatic breathing?
Not quite. Every breath uses your diaphragm, but “belly breathing” usually means the belly moves while the ribcage stays still. With full diaphragmatic (360) breathing, your belly rises AND your ribs expand in all directions.
Should my chest move when I breathe?
Yes! Your lungs live in your chest, so your ribcage should expand when you inhale. What you want to avoid is your neck and shoulders doing the lifting.
Why do my ribs flare when I breathe?
Often it’s because the lower ribs are stuck in more of an inhale position and you’re not getting a full exhale. Practicing a long, slow exhale with a pause at the end can help your lower ribs move down and in.
Should I breathe through my nose or my mouth?
For breathing exercises, a common approach (and the one I use in class) is to inhale through your nose and exhale slowly through your mouth.
How often should I practice 360 breathing?
A few slow breaths at the start of a workout, or anytime during your day, is a great place to start. Even 4–5 breaths can help you feel the difference.
Practice 360 Breathing With Me
Already a Loa member? Watch the videos “Breathing: Explained” and “Hip Lift” under the Body & Breath carousel in the app.
New here? Breathwork is built right into every Loa class, led by a Doctor of Physical Therapy → (try 3 free classes here! No cc required!)
