The non-surgical route for flared lower ribs.
Your lowest ribs angle out and up instead of lying flat, so the bottom of your ribcage sticks out past your waist. Of the three conditions, it's the one you can start on without buying anything.
Joined by 1,000+ people fixing their chest without surgery, since 2015
In plain words.
A breathing problem before a bone problem
Most flare is positional. Your ribcage is stuck in a half-inhale. The diaphragm never reaches its lowest position, so nothing pulls the lower ribs down, and they stay lifted and spread.
It often comes with the other two
Flare very often shows up with pectus excavatum or carinatum, because the same ribcage position drives all of it. If you have either one, check your lower ribs too.
The fix is the exhale
The ribs settle at the bottom of the breath. Most of the correction is learning to empty your lungs fully, then holding the ribs there with your deep core. That's why this one costs nothing to start.
It doesn't mean you're doing something wrong in the gym, and ab training won't fix it. People do crunches for years for this and get nowhere, because crunches don't change where the ribcage sits. It also isn't always positional. If your flare comes from a structural pectus deformity or a connective-tissue condition, it needs to be assessed together with that condition, not trained harder.
Read the full guide: what causes flared ribs and how to fix them
Get the diaphragm back over the ribs and they come down.
Rehab research keeps coming back to one idea: the zone of apposition. That's where the diaphragm overlaps the inside of the ribcage. When the diaphragm sits badly, that zone shrinks, and a clinical paper on ribcage repositioning describes exactly that pattern causing rib flare. Exhale-and-reposition breathing restores the zone, and the ribs settle. The closest published numbers come from Dr. Sydney Haje's dynamic-remodeling work. Brace wear alone corrected 54% of cases. Brace plus regular exercise took that to 77%. The brace holds the position. The breathing and core work is what makes it stick.
- What the work targets
- ZOA
- The zone of apposition, where the diaphragm overlaps the inside of the ribcage. A clinical paper ties poor diaphragm position and postural asymmetry directly to flare.
- Equipment to start
- 0
- The free plan is breathing and core retraining. A brace helps some people hold the position while they learn it, but you don't need one to start.
- What the evidence is
- No RCT
- There are no controlled trials of non-surgical rib flare correction. Where this plan reasons from mechanism instead of a trial, it says so.
Start at the bottom.
They're in order, cheapest first. Each one adds something the one below it doesn't. Most people start at 01 and stop when their chest doesn't need any more.
- 01The free rib flare planHow it works, and the day-by-day breathing and core plan that brings the ribs back down. No equipment.AddsFor a lot of people this is the whole correction. Start here and see how far it takes you.Free
- 02Rib flare braceTargeted compression across the lower ribs, built to your measurements and shipped to you.AddsA physical reminder of the position you're training for, during the hours you aren't thinking about it.$299
- 03Rib Flare Brace GuideFitting, pressure, the wear schedule, and how to pair brace hours with the breathing work instead of swapping one for the other.AddsThe pairing. Wearing a brace without the breathing work is the most common way this stalls.$29
- 04Rib Flare ProgramSixteen weeks of progressive breathing and deep-core training, written in gym and home versions.AddsProgression. The free plan teaches the positions. This one loads them until they hold without you thinking about it.$67
- 05Rib Flare CourseComing soonThe whole method on video, with breathing sessions you can follow along with.AddsYou see the breathing done. It's the one part of this plan that is really hard to learn from text.$197
- 061-on-1 coachingI look at your flare and posture, build the plan around them, and rewrite it every two weeks from your photos and measurements.AddsMy eyes on your ribs. Breathing is the easiest thing on this site to do slightly wrong for months.$199/mo
None of this is behind a price.
Long answers on flared lower ribs, written out in full. No sign-up and no email for any of them. Start with whatever you want to know.
- BreathingFlared Ribs: What Causes Rib Flare and How to Fix It18 min
- BreathingRib Flare Exercises: 10 Moves to Bring Flared Ribs Down10 min
- TrainingPectus Excavatum Exercises: Bench Press, Running and Gym16 min
- PostureRib Flare Braces: Do They Work, Types and Costs14 min
Transformations
& Real Stories
Read them by rating, or by what people actually got out of it - the transformations, the honest reviews, and the messages that land in my inbox every week.
"Had the flare since i was about 14 and just assumed that was my ribcage, permanently. Brace plus the breathing drills and my mrs asked when i'd lost weight. I hadn't lost anything, it's just the ribs sitting where they should now."
"didnt know you could be breathing wrong for 21 years. thats the whole thing right there. flare started going down on its own once i stopped breathing into my shoulders, which is not what i paid for but ill take it"
"ive bought like four programs for this over the years and quit every one of them by week two. finished this one. i think its cus you cant move on until you can actually hold the position, so theres never that thing where you're guessing if youre ready or not"
"I went in wanting to debunk it, honestly. Started opening the citations one at a time and they were real papers that said what he said they said. That is a depressingly low bar and nowhere else online clears it."
"I came across your blog about a year ago and I just want to say how much you've changed my life for the better. I thought it was going to be another average article, but the tips you gave were things I hadn't heard of before. Now I've improved so much and im more confident then ever."
"read the blog for months before i actually did anything with it. no coach, no brace, just the stuff in the articles done properly. i feel a lot better now and the photos say the rest"
"Two months in and I've put on 3 kg of muscle. My chest doesn't cave the way it used to when I'm standing relaxed, and that alone was worth it."
"first call he told me straight up itd take a year and id hate months 2 through 5. he was right about both lol. 12 months on and my PC is flat. took my shirt off at the beach in january without doing the whole towel thing"
"the bell leaves a red ring on your chest the second you take it off, and nobody warns you about that. it fades within the hour and the skin has never been an issue since. 100% satisfied - the sternum sits higher than it has my whole life"
"the brace is made really good, i wear it under the t-shirt at school and nobody has noticed in 4 months. my mother was crying when we compare the photos. sorry for my english"
"He knows more about this than the two consultants I paid to see, which says more about them than it does about him. Showed my GP the 9 month photos and he asked me for the website. Half a star off because the time zones make the calls a nightmare from Ireland."
"watched the youtube for six years before i spent a single cent. bought the program, did it properly for 7 months, and the only thing i actually regret is the six years"
"My son is 15 and had started keeping a shirt on in the pool, which is how I worked out something was wrong in the first place, because he certainly wasn't going to tell me. He would never have stuck with the brace on his own. It was the fortnightly check-ins that did it - he didn't want to turn up with nothing to report. Six months now and the bump has visibly come down. He swims without the shirt."
Shared with each client's permission.
Did I help you with your pectus?
Share your before & after
Before
After
“I'm 32. Everything I ever read said the window on this shuts at 18 and after that you either get cut open or you live with it. Nine months, 5 kg on, 1 cm off the depth. Nobody is more annoyed about the wasted decade than me.”
Before
After
“came in skinny with a deep dip and ribs that stuck out at the bottom. six months, 4kg up. funny thing is nobody says anything about the dip, its the flare going down that people actually noticed”
Before
After
“The brace did the flare, the training did the rest. Seven months, 6 kg on, 1 cm off the depth. The part I wasn't ready for is that I now own shirts that fit, after about fifteen years of buying everything one size too big.”
Before
After“5 months, 4kg on. still there if i go looking for it. nobody else has said a word”
PE pectus excavatum · PC pectus carinatum · RF rib flare
Drag each slider to compare.Tap any case to open and compare. Published only with the client's written consent.
The ones I get most.
How long does rib flare take to fix?
Positional flare usually responds over weeks to months of consistent work. Some people see the ribs settle within six weeks. If you work at it properly for a few months and nothing moves at all, that's a sign to look deeper, not to train harder.
Will ab exercises fix it?
Not on their own, and this is the most common wrong turn. Crunches train the abs but don't change where the ribcage sits. What works is full exhales that pull the ribs down, plus deep-core work that holds them there. It feels like far less effort than the ab work people usually try.
Do I need the brace?
No. This is the one condition here where the free plan alone is enough for many people. The brace helps if you struggle to hold the position, or if you also have a pectus deformity. But start without it.
I have pectus excavatum as well. Which do I work on?
Both, at the same time. They share a root cause in ribcage position, so the breathing work helps both and the exercise plans overlap a lot. Take the quiz and it gives you the combined plan instead of making you pick.
Is rib flare a health problem or just cosmetic?
For most people it's cosmetic. But the mechanics behind it still matter: a diaphragm stuck in a poor position affects how efficiently you breathe. Correcting the flare and breathing better tend to be the same work.
Can I do this as an adult?
Yes. Positional flare is about motor control and habit, not stiff cartilage, so age matters less here than with the other two. What decides it is how consistently you do the breathing and core work, not how old you are.
