How to Use Your Diaphragm for Better Breathing — A Step-by-Step Guide for Athletes in Vermont

In our post on the 3 benefits of diaphragmatic breathing, we covered the why — how proper breathing supports ventilation, organ health, and nervous system regulation through the vagus nerve. If you have not read that one yet, it is a good place to start.

Once you know why diaphragmatic breathing is so valuable, then you can check out how to breathe properly. A tactical guide to start getting the benefits of breathing quick.

This post is about the how. Knowing that diaphragmatic breathing is beneficial does not automatically translate into doing it well. Most people have developed breathing habits over years or decades that underutilize the diaphragm — and changing those habits requires deliberate practice with the right cues.

The good news is that the starting point is simpler than you might expect.

The Easiest Cue: Breathe Through Your Nose

The single most accessible entry point into diaphragmatic breathing is switching from mouth breathing to nasal breathing — both on the inhale and the exhale.

Here is why this works: your nostrils are significantly smaller than your throat. When you breathe through your nose, that smaller opening creates resistance. That resistance requires your diaphragm to work harder to generate the pressure needed to pull air in — which automatically increases diaphragm activation without any complicated technique required.

Nasal breathing also provides several additional benefits that mouth breathing does not:

Warming and humidifying the air before it reaches the lungs, which improves oxygen uptake and reduces irritation of the airways — particularly relevant for Vermont skiers and runners breathing cold, dry air.

Filtering the air through the nasal passages, which removes particles and pathogens before they reach the lower respiratory tract.

Regulating breathing pace — the resistance of nasal breathing naturally slows the breath down, which supports a more relaxed, efficient breathing pattern rather than the shallow, rapid pattern that mouth breathing tends to produce under stress.

It sounds almost too simple — but your nose is designed for breathing and your mouth is designed for eating. Returning to that design is one of the most impactful breathing changes most people can make.

The Breathe 360 Technique

Once you understand nasal breathing, the next step is learning to use your full lung volume — expanding the lungs in all directions rather than just upward into the chest.

We call this technique Breathe 360 — the goal is a full 360-degree expansion of the lungs on each inhale, filling the lower, middle, and upper portions of the lungs and expanding the rib cage in all directions including front, sides, and back.

Most people breathe primarily into the upper chest. This uses a fraction of the available lung volume and relies heavily on accessory breathing muscles in the neck and shoulders rather than the diaphragm. Breathe 360 reclaims the full volume that the diaphragm is designed to access.

How to practice Breathe 360:

Start lying on your back in a comfortable position. This is your reference position — the one in which full lung volume is most accessible for most people.

Inhale through your nose and focus on expanding in all directions simultaneously — feel your belly rise, your lower ribs expand outward to the sides, and your back press gently into the floor. The expansion should be three-dimensional, not just upward.

Exhale fully through your nose, allowing the rib cage to gently recoil and the belly to fall.

Take your time. This is not a fast breath — it is a full, deliberate one. Five to six seconds on the inhale, five to six seconds on the exhale is a reasonable starting target

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE0_OuRWz3c

Practice this for five minutes before sleep as a way to calm your nervous system and reinforce the pattern. Over time, the fuller diaphragmatic breath becomes the default rather than requiring deliberate effort.

Using Breathing as a Self-Assessment Tool

Here is one of the most clinically useful applications of the Breathe 360 technique — one that goes beyond recovery and into performance and movement quality.

When you achieve a full breath volume lying on your back, that is your reference breath volume. The goal is to be able to reach at least 90 percent of that reference volume in any position, at any point during the day.

Why does this matter? Because your breathing is one of the first things that gets compromised when your body does not tolerate a position well. When you are in a position your body is not comfortable in — whether that is a deep squat, an overhead reach, a lunge, or even just standing — your diaphragm's ability to move through its full range gets restricted. Your breath volume drops. You compensate with accessory muscles. And the position feels harder than it should.

Try this right now:

Get your reference breath volume lying on your back. Then stand up and take the same breath. Then try a squat position. A lunge. An overhead reach. A pushup position.

Notice where your breath volume drops significantly. Those are the positions your body does not fully own. The positions where you cannot breathe well are almost always the same positions where you do not move well, do not feel confident, or are most likely to compensate or get injured.

The fix is not to avoid those positions — it is to stay in them and practice breathing. Deliberately taking full Breathe 360 breaths in a challenging position teaches your nervous system to tolerate that position, reduces the guarding response that restricts movement, and progressively builds ownership of ranges you were previously avoiding.

This is the tip of the iceberg for what breathing assessment and training can reveal. Positions you struggle to breathe in are positions worth working on — and improving your breath in those positions often unlocks movement improvements that isolated strength or mobility work could not produce.

Building a Daily Breathing Practice

The most effective way to improve breathing patterns is consistent daily practice — not long sessions but frequent, deliberate repetitions throughout the day.

Before sleep: Five minutes of Breathe 360 lying on your back is one of the highest-return breathing habits you can build. It calms the nervous system, deepens the breath, and reinforces the diaphragmatic pattern at a time when your body is already transitioning toward rest.

Throughout the day: Take two or three deliberate nasal breaths before transitions — before a meeting, before a training set, before getting out of the car. These brief check-ins maintain awareness of your breathing pattern and prevent the drift back into shallow chest breathing that happens automatically under stress or focus.

During position practice: Spend 60 to 90 seconds in challenging positions — a deep squat hold, a lunge, an overhead position — and focus on breathing fully through your nose. This serves as both a mobility practice and a nervous system regulation tool simultaneously.

Breathing is a skill that has long-term effects more valuable than many training interventions. We take it for granted precisely because we do it constantly — but that also means every repetition of a better pattern compounds across thousands of breaths per day.

For athletes ready to take breathing beyond the basics and use it as a performance tool, read our post on breathing as a training tool — which covers box breathing, nasal breathing training protocols, and how to use your breath to gain an edge in performance and recovery.

Breathing Support in Williston, VT

At Snow Beast Performance in Williston, Vermont, breathing mechanics are part of how we assess and treat every client — because breathing patterns affect pain, movement quality, and performance in ways that are often underappreciated until they are addressed.

If you are curious about how your breathing patterns might be limiting your movement or recovery, our physical therapy services include a comprehensive evaluation that looks at the full picture — including how you breathe.

Get started with a free 15-minute discovery call whenever you are ready.

FAQ: Diaphragmatic Breathing Technique

Why is nasal breathing better than mouth breathing during exercise? Nasal breathing creates resistance that activates the diaphragm more effectively than mouth breathing, produces nitric oxide in the nasal passages which improves oxygen uptake, filters and humidifies air before it reaches the lungs, and naturally regulates breathing pace to prevent hyperventilation. During lower to moderate intensity exercise, nasal breathing is trainable and produces meaningful improvements in breathing efficiency over time.

How long does it take to change a breathing pattern? Breathing pattern change requires consistent daily practice over weeks to months — it is a motor skill, not a one-time adjustment. Most people notice a meaningful difference in their resting breathing pattern within 4 to 6 weeks of deliberate daily practice. The pattern under stress and during exercise takes longer to change because stress and exertion naturally trigger older, more ingrained breathing habits.

What does it mean if I cannot breathe well in certain positions? It means your body does not fully tolerate those positions — your nervous system is applying a protective restriction that limits both movement and breathing. This is clinically useful information. The positions where breathing is most restricted are often the positions most worth working on, both from a movement quality and injury prevention perspective.

Can breathing exercises help with back pain? Yes — and this is one of the most underutilized applications of breathing work in physical therapy. The diaphragm attaches to the lumbar spine and plays a direct role in spinal stability. Dysfunctional breathing patterns are associated with altered motor control of the deep spinal stabilizers, which contributes to low back pain. Improving diaphragmatic breathing is a foundational component of low back rehabilitation at Snow Beast Performance. For more on this connection, read our post on what core strength actually means.

How is the Breathe 360 technique different from standard deep breathing? Standard deep breathing cues typically emphasize belly expansion — breathing into the abdomen. Breathe 360 aims for full three-dimensional expansion — front, sides, and back — which engages the full circumference of the diaphragm rather than just the anterior portion. This produces greater total lung volume, more complete diaphragm activation, and a stronger signal to the parasympathetic nervous system.

Written by Stephen Burkert, DPT — Snow Beast Performance, Williston, VT