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To maintain a good posture during sitting or standing still, one has to use spinal and abdominal muscles (in a perfectly healthy individual it is supposed to happen unconsciously) quite a lot.

However if one has to stand still or sit for a long time, these muscles start to experience fatigue (even if they are well trained). I have heard from a doctor once that in order to help this, normally these muscles relax and contract back following the breathing cycle. In my case apparently it does not happen automatically so I have a muscle fatigue very fast when I sit or stand for longer times.

Can somebody suggest me some references on this coupling between the breathing and spinal/abdominal muscles relaxation? I have not managed to find anything on the web. The only things I was able to find were about how difficult it is to breathe normally if you have a bad posture, which is of course a useful thing to know, but it is not at all what I am interested in.

P.S. I am not quite sure if I have to place this question here or to health.se

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Here is a ref. you may find very useful http://www.energyarts.com/taoist-longevity-breathing. The class I took taught us to use breathing to support a variety of postures.

For example, in prone extension the back muscles begin to fatigue, but when you combine this with breathing into the posture, the muscles do less of the work allowing you to maintain the posture with less effort. The lessons take diaphragmatic breathing well beyond the basics.

I'm sorry that I can't take the explanation farther than that, but I hope that gives you a start of where to look.

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  • I found that diaphragmatic breathing itself does not solve the issue, apparently it has to be done in some special right way. Maybe your first link it precisely about that, I will check it out. Though if you have a more scientific reference, it would be even better. – demitau Aug 17 '17 at 19:56
  • Yes it is not just diaphragmatic breathing, but a method or sequence of breath. I'm sorry that I can't give you a better explanation. As to scientific research, to my knowledge Taoist Longevity Breathing would not have scientific data. You may want to try doing a prone extension to see how it feels, and then try one by breathing with the diaphragm, gently expanding the front, side and back of the abdomen to see if it makes a difference. I will say that I needed instruction and practice. – BackInShapeBuddy Aug 18 '17 at 2:46

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