Natural Method of Physical Training by Edwin Checkley, (03) How to Breathe

There is a joint in the ribs as they approach the center of the sternum. The ribs are made of a flexible cartilage that is readily under exercise. Breathing distends the ribs and cartilage in the most effective way. Breathing is the only effectual way to broaden the chest. Breathing creates a genuine tendency to expansion under the interior pressure from the lungs.

The dotted lines again illustrate the areas of chest expansion under full breathing. We need to exercise all breathing assistance muscles equally including the muscles of the lungs chest and diaphragm.

The simplest exercise is full long breathing. While standing or sitting in any proper stance, with the chest free, take in a long breath until the lungs feel full, taking care not to harshly strain the lungs or muscles. Hold the breath for few seconds then slowly exhale. By consciously breathing in this manner, the lungs become strengthened and the breath becomes slower.

Normal breathing, when the body is at rest, should not include more than ten breaths per minute.

With training we can get along very comfortably without any more than six breaths per minute, sleeping or waking.

Exercising in a normal character, the breath should naturally increase to 14-16 breaths per minute.

Take long breaths as often as we think of it. Practice in this fashion until it becomes an unconscious act. A long breath will be found to represent strength, a strength that endures. Strength is possessed in proportion to the length of respiratory movement.

In all lung exercises, endeavor to inflate the lungs upward and outward instead of downward. Carry the chest and lungs as if the inflation is about lift the body off the ground upward and forward. The feeling of buoyancy from the development is not an illusion, it is genuine.

Breathing Exercises

• Take the proper starting position with hands together (locking the thumbs). Raise the hands, keeping the arms straight. At the same take in a long breath. When the arms are raised as high as possible without straining or bending in any way slowly lower the arms while breathing out. Repeat this a number of times. When the shoulder chest muscles achieve a good condition, we will be able to raise the arms straight over the body without any bending or strain.

• Variation B. Follow the same steps described in Fig. 6. breathing in as the arms raise over head and breathing out as the arms lower.

• Variation C.Follow the same steps described in Fig. 6., breathing in as the arms extend and breathing out as the arms flex.

• These exercises are easy yet exhilarating and fill the double office of strengthening the lungs and developing the chest and shoulder muscles. Practice these exercises after rising and before fully dressing and again before retiring at night. Find some time during the day to practice as well. These movement should not be performed more quickly than ten times a minute.

Do not overdo this or any other form of exercise, especially at the outset. Seek to gain pleasure from exercise. We do not want our pleasure of exercise to be destroyed by a sense of pain. Nothing is gained by straining.