Diaphragm Development

"Mr. A has had an injury to his diaphragm -- inability to function properly --adversely affecting his breathing. There is no established medical treatment for this condition and patient has been encouraged to seek any and all alternative treatment modalities."

-- An enlightened medical doctor

Recommended program to develop the diaphragm

The diaphragm is the central muscle of the human body, the principal muscle of your breathing. It almost completely separates the body in half from top to bottom. Ancient Greece called the diaphragm phrenos, the unity of all possibilities of human expression.

Your heart rests over it your liver, gall bladder spleen, stomach and kidneys lie below it. It is attached to your spine as it moves and massages all your abdominal organs.

Your diaphragm is the mediator of all the biological and emotional rhythms of your body. Including the autonomic nervous system. The diaphragm interconnects your abdomen, lungs and spine. Because of these relationships its movement is profoundly influenced by posture, and continuously influences digestion, elimination and respiration.

The rhythmic movement of your diaphragm is changing constantly. It is shaped like a half dome arching into the cavity of your chest. As you inhale it contracts down pressing on your organs and hopefully with a proper deep breath, opens up your chest. Air rushes as you breathe in and as you exhale, your diaphragm relaxes and rises (again hopefully), pushing the air up and out.

But the diaphragm shrinks. And when it does it loses some or most of its air drawing and exhaling ability. It is then that we can learn about how much of so called diaphragmatic breathing really ISN'T full breathing.

All optimal breathing is diaphragmatic + rib breathing. Some COPD victims breathe diaphragmatically, just not very much. Practically NO rib breathing. Some breathe with the ribs and hardly any diaphragm.

If you think of the diaphragm as a face down half-dome shaped bowl like a fresh half plum that can weaken and shrivel up on the top and all around its sides like a prune. This means that the diaphragm is effected on ALL sides of it. It can weaken on any part of its bowl shaped surface. And according to Carl Stough, aka Dr. Breath, it most often stays weakened unless something is done about it. The ancient saying "if you don't use it you lose it " comes to mind.

With the recent "new age" popularity of daily conscious breathing exercises, many are being trained to either breathe into the belly, consistently watch their breath, create postures that are supposed to expand the breathing (many do), or forcefully inhale or exhale in an attempt to increase breathing rate or volume..

The belly breath can stabilize the nervous systems and emotions and is generally a good place to begin strengthening. But I have seen many exceptions to this as a improperly trained belly breath can also become an habitual distraction and breathing restriction.

Watching the breath is good for many to focus and get calm but can develop into an ongoing distraction. Postures can expand/or distribute the breath as well as cause the breathing restriction they hope to eliminate. The forcefulness/effort can be valuable but is in many ways unnecessary and can cause sympathetic arousal and unneeded restriction of full breathing volume, ie "breathing blocks". These blocks are tensions and postures in the body that restrict the natural flow of the breathing energy called life-force, chi, ki, qi, ha, prana, pneuma, elan vital and many, many others. Breathing awareness, physical assessments, and sound production quality and quantity are the primary markers for positive change of the breath.

Many techniques exist to modify, direct or observe the activity of the breath. Each has its purpose and limitation. Any one exercise you do with the breath will, after enough repetitions, restrict the diaphragm and rib cages freedom and fullness. When we forcibly take deeper belly breaths, we also partially stimulate the sympathetic nervous system because we are efforting the activity. When practicing breath awareness, observation of the breath may cause it to speed up slow down or go somewhat shallow.

'Breath awareness' is more of a sitting or walking meditation and a pretty good one except I have had clients tell me that to follow their breath made them extremely anxious and others that just couldn't do it due to stress and internal distractions. Chi Kung and Tai chi have long been favorite exercises with many positive benefits Similar benefits can stem from other ways of breathing development. There has not been one student of the martial arts that I have not been able to add significant ease or fullness of breath but I presume such people may exist.

Redevelopment of the diaphragm is the primary goal in breathing work.

The diaphragm shrinks and as it shrinks it will rise less and less up in to the chest. Liken it to a bicycle pump. If you pull the handle out just a little you get very little air into the tire. The higher the diaphragm rise the higher the pump handle can rise and the more air it can push/pull into the tire/lungs.

It shrinks irregularly as well. This happens with almost every lung issue. I have had video fluoroscopes of MY diaphragm. It was fascinating. The MD radiologist was kind enough to let me x-ray my diaphragm but did not have a protocol for this which suggests to me a lack of clinical research into diaphragm function and development.

LUNG FUNCTION - Taken from the #191 Secrets of Optimal Natural Breathing manual.

The lungs lose their capacity to increase vital capacity primarily in five ways.

My order of priority:

1. The rib cage either shrinks, becomes stiff and inflexible, or freezes in hyper-open position. (The ribs must squeeze the lungs; so must the diaphragm). People with large frozen chests may well be heart attack or lung disease prone. A sustained bear hug from big uncle Ben, or a belt or girdle, will make it harder to breathe. Pythons slowly squeeze their prey and it suffocates to death or dies of fright. Underbreathing is also a lot like boiling a frog. I am told that if you place a live frog in a pot of cold water that you can raise the temperature so slowly that it will not notice the rising temperature. It will allow itself to be boiled to death.
   

   See the diaphragm right above this picture and note how the stomach _pink- is directly underneath the diaphragm. With food in your stomach you cannot breathe as easily. Food also lowers your blood oxygen.

   

   See the lungs below and notice how they are mostly in the sides and back and not the front. So it is a waste of time trying to get any breath in the chest area

2. The diaphragm muscle deteriorates (shrinks and shrivels like a prune) and can't expand to push the bad air out so new air can come in. See the picture below

   6.1

   

   and observe how one has a larger - higher rise - diaphragm than the other.

   The smaller diaphragm won't travel up into the chest as far the other and "squeeze the sponge" of lung tissue so that new air can be exchanged for old air. The more you pull the bicycle pump out back the more air you draw in and can then push back out.

3. The lungs collect debris inside the Cavity of alveolus which displaces the life giving air and clogs up general lung functioning such as gas exchange of oxygen from the alveolae to the blood cells. The food we eat can clog up the respiratory/elimination system. Bad breath is often a sign of an unhealthy colon. The colon malfunctions hindering the lungs' ability to eliminate toxins.
   

4. Posture and coordination of the pelvis, abdominal, side, chest and back and neck muscles that support the breathing-wave becomes compromised and we breathe in a somewhat restricted, robotic or uncoordinated manner. If you're right handed, try to throw a ball left handed, and you have an extreme example of improper coordination. Uncoordinated breathing is often so subtle you think it is normal. Normal may not be even close to healthy.

5. The soft organs can swell and inhibit diaphragm and lung expansion. These organs are massaged by the movement of the diaphragm and ribs and the lack of diaphragmatic excursion (upward mobility) reduces the squeezing/massaging and cleansing of the heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, etc, and blood and vital fluids.

The diaphragm needs to developed to be larger, stronger, wider, to rise higher in the chest higher, and become more flexible, more malleable and stronger.

Like a bicycle pump, you cannot draw in air to the tube of the pump unless you can first push the plunger further in to the pump than when you started. This is the exhale. If you can't push it forward (excursion) you can't draw the pump handle back, and you can't draw air in to it. You have, so to speak, shortened the piston stroke. Figures 3.4 & 6.2 show a reduced height of another diseased person's diaphragm. Because of its reduced height, it drew less air because its pumping stroke was less.

6.1

The diaphragm loses excursion height and does not draw as much air into the lungs. (If you don't pull the bicycle pump plunger out, you cannot force the air in. Spirometry, forced inhales and exhales will improve O2 saturation and may strengthen the diaphragm but the ribs will tighten up and lose their ability to expand (see animation below. This is why I advise many asthmatics use the spirometer as little as possible. The diaphragm needs to become larger. A larger car engine runs slower and smoother. Observe the fastest cats (cheetahs) and dogs (greyhounds) to get a good example of breathing and its relationship to chest size.

Poor posture compresses the entire system and inhibits full and free inhalation. Debris builds up in the lungs that cannot be squeezed out causing or contributing to emphysema and COPD. The tensions help throw off the nervous system inviting asthma and anxiety. Each factor erodes the optimal breath.

Watch the logo animation and let it guide your breathing. See how the ribs expand as the diaphragm goes down pulling in air from the windpipe into the lungs. It is timed to be reasonably good breathing. Not optimal, just reasonably good. The pattern will vary somewhat with each breath. Look at yourself in the mirror and see if your breathing looks anything like that. Or breathe with it and see how you feel.

A hole in the diaphragm

I hope this clarifies some things for you.

If you have not already done so, take the Breathing Tests. Get the manual and recorded exercises and improve your breathing. Don't wait until you have no energy and need me to help you. To be really alive at one hundred and five, you need to learn to breathe better now.

Blessings,
Mike\

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