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[granpa_pete]

I've seen a few training articles say that you can expand your rib cage, over time, by doing light dumbbell pullovers while deeply breathing. Usually this is done after you get winded from 20 rep squats

Comments

[dirty_deeds]

afaik it's total bullshit

[granpa_pete]

It's easy to get an idea of how you'd look. Take your shirt off and look at yourself in the mirror. Breathe in deeply to expand your ribcage (but don't puff out your stomach). I'm a really skinny guy with narrow shoulders, so that makes my chest look substantially bigger and gives my torso a nicer V-shape.

I doubt that it works though, and even if it does, I'm afraid it would have some negative impact on breathing.

[tarzan_]

ill catch flack for this but whatever, flame away i dont care. I say that heavy ones will, ive been doing them for years and it has, though im only 21 now, so maby my bones arent totally set up forever. it hurts like hell afterwards, because i think that it creats tiny fractures ane then heals.

thats all ive got. flame on

[vancityviking]

I agree, I don't think you'll see a drastic change but I've been doing heavy weights with the exercise, making sure that I get a good stretch, and I feel that it has worked a bit.

Arnold's encyclopedia of body-building even alludes to this effect... and we all know that the book itself is gospel ;).

[scribblescrawl]

FWIW, as a swimmer I was forever told that years of deep breathing while swimming tends to expand our rib cages. I have anecdotal evidence from friends any myself, but I never sought out whether it's a common occurrence or not. Also, this happened to those of us who started swimming at a very young age.

Yeah, probably no help.

Arnold rears his ugly head....

[conjugatemethod]

Ok, Arnold is the origin of this absurd myth of ribcage expansion. The Austrian Oaf is well known for giving out bad training advice. He lied about his training regimen in the hope that his opponents would copy him and waste their time. Sadly a lot of that bad advice is still floating around.

[kalib]

Anatomically speaking this would create breathing difficulties as you suggest. As an example, breathe in as you said to do to get an idea of how it would look. Now try breathing in more. My guess is you'll find that hard to do. Expansion of the plural cavity it directly related to the volumetric increase created by the downward movement of the diaphragm. Essentially this is how we breathe, by increasing the volume of the space the surrounding pressure decreases and therefor atmospheric pressure forces air into our lungs. If the rib cage were expanded to any substantial degree the basic effect would be to negate an amount of the volume increase thereby stopping the pressure decrease. I.E. less air would be able to be put into the lungs. Unless of course someone could figure out how to lower their diaphragm more, but as far as I know that's not possible. Sorry for the long winded answer. Hope it helped.

[granpa_pete]

Hmm... so I think you're saying that the distance the diaphragm moves is constant, so the volume it increases the lungs by is constant (I remember it being like half a liter, but I'd have to look it up). With an expanded chest, the total chest volume is larger, so the percent increase of chest volume from the diaphragm is now lower. Therefore, less air flows in while breathing.

I think that sounds right. There might be one opposing effect -- if you're chest has been expanded, the circumference is increase and the diaphragm moves a greater volume of air while still moving the same vertical distance. I'm not sure it would move the same distance, though. That's not an absolute number, but something determined by diaphragm muscle fiber lengths and how much they contract.