While all skeletal muscles have a synergistic function, only one dictates its will upon the rest. The diaphragm serves up oxygen, the most essential element for life, expanding and contracting to maintain the body’s homeostasis.
The diaphragm acts as a master regulator through the stresses of life and training. Your breathing pattern is the most direct feedback loop you possess in gauging your Central Nervous System.
The Diaphragm as a Gauge
Your breathing rate and cadence serve as your most immediate biofeedback loop.
The rate and cadence of your breathing remain unchanged when presented with an insufficient stimulus for growth.
The rate and cadence of your breathing is starkly interrupted when an exercise is too difficult, as your brain processes the immediate threat. This exemplifies a stimulus too challenging for growth, and potentially dangerous.
The premises of these scenarios are blatantly obvious, even to a novice exerciser. The real utility of diaphragmatic response lies in the more moderate ranges. The diaphragm’s intimate relationship with working muscles is a focal point in gauging the intensity of both resistance and cardiovascular training. With experience, your breathing pattern will guide you in assessing the appropriate intensity for you to grow in your training.
In the more moderate ranges of intensity, kinesthetic awareness of diaphragmatic response helps you to operate with precision, to tune into your body’s natural work rhythm and precisely stimulate the training process.
Neural Pathways
Your neuromuscular patterns are coded deeply within your brain, where familiar patterns become increasingly efficient. The more you perform a movement, the more familiar your diaphragm becomes in regulating the breathing pattern which accompanies said movement.
New, foreign patterns will interrupt this natural breathing pattern as your brain shifts into the learning process. Learning a new pattern is like walking a slack line, it’s a balancing act. Your consciousness shifts, often with polarity, between executing correct movement mechanics, and the conscious effort to breathe. This is no coincidence. This is the process.
Once your CNS downloads the movement pattern into its database, with practice, the diaphragm learns to work in sync with the muscles. It is in this phase when you become one with the movement, when your diaphragm has unconsciously established the mind muscle connection.
Diaphragmatic breathing is more than just a tool to relax or meditate. It is the very fabric which weaves all movements together, a big piece of reaching the flow state. In one sense the diaphragm is a muscle like any others, capable of hypertrophy, fatigue, and increases in volume. Ultimately, the volume and endurance of your diaphragm dictates your ability to feed working muscles with oxygen, making it the master regulator of all other muscular work.
The Four Phases of Breathing
Exhalation - Control Pause -Inhalation - Breath Hold
Exhalation - Clears lungs, decreases heart rate
Control Pause- Moment between exhalation and inhalation
Inhalation - Fills lungs, increases heart rate
Breath Hold - Holds oxygen in lungs for absorption, decreases heart rate
Diaphragm Exercises
Even count breathing:
Exhale - 4 seconds
Control Pause - 4 seconds
Inhale- 4 seconds
Breath Hold - 4 seconds
^Abbreviated 4/4/4/4
*As heart rate slows down, this number increases(Ex: 10/10/10/10 or 15/15/15/15)
Parasympathetic Breathing:
Elongate the phases of breathing which LOWER the heart rate, try a 2:1 ratio (Ex: 4/2/2/4 or 8/4/4/8) Stimulates Parasympathetic Nervous System.
Pranayama/rapid breathing: Rapid inhalation and exhalation for periods of time. Stimulates Sympathetic Nervous System. (Ex: 10 seconds or 20 seconds)
Wim Hof Method: a similar method used by free divers around the world, the Wim Hof Method hyper-oxygenates your blood supply. In my opinion this method is worthy of exploration, but be careful and perform at your own risk.
Creates a state of hyperventilation, decreases the carbon dioxide content in your blood supply, helping you hold breath for extended periods of time. I won't post details here but you can google it if curious.
^Warning: can cause dizziness or feinting when done incorrectly
*Perform at your own risk