Breath Belt Review
Last updated on January 11th, 2024 at 11:47 am
The breath belt was first introduced to me by means of Joe Sullivan. Then by Adam Hensley of Garage Gym Lab. Then a huge assortment of people including Chris Duffin and more started dawning the belt in preparation of big lifts. At a certain point, similar to the Sanddune Stepper, I get intrigued and figure there has to be something there. That many solid athletes and coaches from different backgrounds can’t possibly be misguided by a flashy new tool. There has to be something there… right?
Key Notes
The Breath Belt works. Probably for a number of things, but I’ve witnessed it and felt it work with new athletes and experienced athletes.
Since the Breath Belt isn’t “too” complicated, this is a fairly short review in general. Hopefully informative none the less. Let’s dig in.
Breath Belt – Overview
The breath belt appears to basically be two elastic belts slapped together. Like most good things though, the devil is in the details. It isn’t as simple as taking two belts or two pieces of cloth and wrapping them around your waist. The Breath Belt is made of specific material that allows it to do a few things.
Unlike a traditional powerlifting belt where you typically are using it to introduce some rigidity into the trunk and breathe into it for proprioception and bracing, the Breath Belt moves with your breath. So, as you exhale it tightens, and when you inhale it expands. This movement WITH your breathing, allows the belt to force the muscles in your core musculature to engage.
This makes them work properly at all times of the breath, thus improving breathing mechanics, posture, and bracing. I want to clarify, the belt isn’t magic in it’s ability to move with your breath. It is made of a stretchy fabric that accommodates the movement. So when you inhale it is expanding because YOU are expanding. This is truly the key function of the belt, that constant and consistent tension applied to the core that forces all the right stuff to do their thing.
Anyone who has had any dysfunction in movement patterns in the past can often tell you that the body creates a work around. The work around for a messed up core is often tight hip flexors, tight hamstrings, bad posture, tight pecs, etc. Basically, 0you end up in that kyphotic rounded posture that looks like you don’t do anything except sit in a chair all day long yelling at noobs on the internet as you pwn them in Halo.
Engage!
The Breath Belt, by engaging the right muscles and providing the right proprioceptive cues, works to undue those posture problems. It helps YOU breathe better and move better, making you a BETTER athlete and human being. The basic premise would be that better posture for a powerlifter means bigger weights and less injuries. Better posture for a bodybuilder means a more presentable physique. This is achieved by bringing in the gut which accentuates the v-taper from all angles.
There are other options on the market that do similar things. But the Breath Belt stands out in its application and intended audience. Similar to the comparison people often make between the Sanddune Stepper and a piece of foam, the Breath Belt was designed for the athlete population. You can wear it throughout your hardest workouts and not worry about it busting, moving, or otherwise malfunctioning. Other similar belts are meant to be worn throughout the day, even during sleep.
The breath belt, while able to be worn throughout the day, is certainly not a sleeping belt. So these belts are similar, but intended for different audiences. Keep in mind, it isn’t like a gen-pop person won’t have the same results from the Breath Belt. It is simply that the Breath Belt is scalable from intro to advanced. Other products on the market aren’t really intended for that.
So that is the idea and intended purpose, but what about the results?
Performance
I have two belts that were sent to me by Jesse, the owner of Breath Belt. One for me, one for my wife. So, we both have consistently worn ours in the mornings before our workouts and during our warm-ups, sometimes into our workouts. My wife even wears hers through the entire workout if the day doesn’t call for her Pioneer powerlifting belt. I wear mine five days a week, my wife four, and we’ve done so for the last 4 months or so.
The day after our first time wearing it, we both noticed something. We were INCREDIBLY sore in the midsection. Like, I had never done a sit-up before and tried to do 100 in a row, kind of sore. It happened every day for a solid week before I think our bodies started to adapt. I actually took a deload and didn’t wear it for a week, and got the same response the first week back. Sore as hell. While soreness isn’t exactly a sign that something is working or doing literally anything at all, the idea that BOTH of us had this happen is very interesting. No other changes, no additional sets, reps, nothing.
Pair that with the fact that I do core work five days a week and never get sore there, and my wife regularly does plank variations, and this was a real shocker. It wasn’t like I felt anything real different during the first day wearing it. I didn’t all of a sudden feel my abs working, or core musculature, or anything like that. But that deep soreness was rough and very noticeable.
And…
From there, one of the most visible differences is that our waists appear to be shrinking/tightening. I’ve been on a diet, where my wife has been at maintenance. So you could contribute mine to the diet, but not hers. We aren’t talking EXTREME slimming or anything, you aren’t going to be severely overweight and magically have a six pack, but when you are relatively lean in the first place and can drop an inch on the waist, it is certainly noticeable and appreciated.
For my wife, she has found that the belt works REALLY well for the vast majority of her lifting. It is enough of a cue without hampering her ability to move, breathe, and lift, to where she can stay strong and braced throughout her entire workout without the downsides of wearing a traditional belt for an hour.
She has also been experimenting with our log for log clean and press, and wouldn’t you know it the belt works really well for this. A traditional powerlifting belt SUCKS because you ram the log right into it. This is thin enough to not cause any concerns there, AND give you the tension and cueing you want for that little extra stability and strength.
For me, I tend to wear it during my morning routine and walk into my warmup for my workout. I often wear it during my beltless sets and ramp up from there, tossing on the legit powerlifting belt when it is time to get down to business.
New Lifters
I’ve used the belt with my nephew as well. He is 14 and at the end of 2021 showed up for a few workouts in his baseball offseason. Zero experience lifting weights and my first concern was around his bracing. We tossed on the belt, told him to breathe into it and HOLD. He nailed it. One simple cue and he was deadlifting 180lbs his first day of lifting with zero degradation in form and no back rounding. I was blown away. We experimented a few days later with some over variations without the belt, and he struggled. The Breath Belt was definitely doing some heavy lifting in the department of helping him lift correctly and safely.
In terms of posture improvements, those are hard to measure. I could tell you that I believe my hips and pelvis are getting more neutral, but that could be placebo. But I am actively doing a LOT to mitigate some postural issues, so I don’t exactly have a closed experiment to say the Breath Belt fixed everything for me.
Pain
I rarely suffer from back pain anymore, my wife either, so I’m not sure we can comment on going from broken to fixed with the belt. But what I DO notice, is that it seems to amplify my mobility work. I’m tighter on the right side than the left, so as I do more rotational work to open up that side, work on moving my upper back and unglueing it, the activation of the core keeps the focus where it should be instead of allowing compensation patterns to take over.
As I open up the hips via various stretches, drills, and soft tissue work, I get that same deep ab soreness the next day. This is telling me that I am getting a 1+1=3 effect out of the belt, where my mobility is getting better and I’m using my legit core musculature instead of the wrong hip muscles to stabilize. My upper back mobility is reinforced through proper mechanics down the body. This lends itself to deeper squats, better squats, and stronger squats, improved benching, better rows, you name it.
Rotation
On the note of the rotation aspects, the Breath Belt has pockets on the inside where you can place a ball, towel, etc. This gives you some self-myofascial release type effects, which is really cool. I’ve only started to experiment with this, but you can target either side or the front or back of your body. So regardless of where your tension might be, you can address it.
One thing to note, with the materials of the belt, there might be a concern that in the future you need to replace it. I’m not sure where that timeline is, but the stretchy material could easily become TOO stretched and no longer produce the same reliable feedback for the core, much like a pair of knee sleeves will wear out over time. So keep that in mind, this might not be a one and done purchase.
Final Takeaways
After a few months of consistently wearing the belt, I’m pretty hooked. My wife is too. It has become a habit to toss it on every morning, head out on our morning walk, and then get to work. I’ve talked with others around the internet that have noticed similar things. Tighter abs and midsection, better posture, you name it. If the belt hangs around long enough, it’ll probably be my daughters first lifting belt. Guaranteed if I have any new lifters come over, they are wearing the belt for cueing purposes.
For us, the Breath Belt isn’t something that I see as a full-on necessity, as much as a really cool addition. I liken it to the Sanddune Stepper. If I woke up tomorrow and it was never here, I wouldn’t be in constant search of its replacement. But now that I have it, I use it regularly and continue to be impressed with the things I’m finding. I’ve only just begun to tinker with the Breath Belt’s abilities with the ball pockets and opening up my rotational abilities.
The continued core soreness, aesthetic improvements, and ability to wear for strongman style workouts is enough for me to give the Breath Belt a thumbs up at this current stage. If it continues to produce that 1+1=3 effect on my mobility and posture improvements, helps me unglue that right side for rotation, AND continues to play a role in my aesthetic V-Taper pursuits, well then, it’ll be exactly like the Sanddune Stepper in that it just keeps getting better. My wife is planning a diet in January for an upcoming summer vacation, and if it helps her get a little tighter in the midsection she will be ecstatic.
Questions To Ask
I think the questions to ask yourself are…
1) are you struggling with bracing, posture, back pain, etc? Snag it and give it a try.
2) are you looking for some aesthetic support in the V-Taper department? Snag it and give it a try.
3) are you training a newer lifter? Snag it and give it a try.
4) are you training strongman and need a belt? Snag it and give it a try.
If none of those apply, feel free to move on. No product is for everyone.
If you are considering it, check with Joe Sullivan and some other guys who are WAY more experienced with the belt. This is simply my experience to date, I don’t claim to be a a Breath Belt expert.
Adam has a great deal of info in his write up as well.
And on their site they have a huge list of videos and tutorials to check out.
Joe Gray
My name is Joe Gray - aka Gray Matter Lifting - and I've been lifting at home since 2013. In that time I've built a badass gym, deadlifted over 600lbs, helped grow r/Homegym to over 1 Million subscribers, created the Garage Gym Competition and written a ton of posts here on this site. I love the Garage Gym Community... If you do too, I hope you stick around.
