Is there anyway i can strengthen my diaphram muscles?

[Biggs]

I know this may sound stupid but can anyone give me some tips.

Yes. Once a day, punch yourself in the gut as hard as you can. Eventually, this experience will become so painful that you will do anything possible - including practice - to keep yourself too busy to get around to your daily punch.

[peter birch]

no, you cannot strengthen your diaphragm, but you can do things to help it work efficiently, the most important of which is to keep your weight under control as you get older. A big belly splints the diaphragm and stops it moving down and therefore reduces the volume of the thoracic cavity.
I think we sometimes ignore the fact that playing the tuba is a considerable physical activity, we don't prepare as we would for a race, or a gym session or a football game, and don't pay as much attention to our general physical condition as we should.
Breathing exercises are great, and we should use them as part of our practice and rehearsal routine, but they affect abs, chest and shoulder muscles, not the diaphragm.

[gwwilk]

[Old Guy Getting His Dander Up]
Fifty five years ago my (now) long-dead music teacher and fine trombone player taught all wind instrument players to use our abdominal muscles for inhalation and exhalation. Exhalation was to be enhanced by tightening our abdominal muscles (really primarily the rectus abdomini). Thinking about the diaphragm only distracts from the primary task of using abdominal breathing.

When taking our deepest breaths in order to use the maximum amount of our vital capacity (look it up if you don't understand the term) we need to enlist the auxiliary respiratory muscles for inspiration. This can best be illustrated by the uplifting of our shoulders during maximal inspiration. However, in order to reinforce the concept of abdominal breathing he also taught us to avoid using a shoulder lift until we had mastered abdominal breathing.

One key to excellent wind instrument tone is proper respiratory support, which won't happen when you try to use just your diaphragm. You have to use abdominal muscles properly in order to play wind instruments. Any other discussion just distracts from that ineluctable fact.

Sorry, but there has been nothing in this discussion that has convinced me otherwise.

You want to strengthen your abdominal muscles, do sit-ups, roll-ups, or whatever currently is in fashion in your gym. Get fit and lose weight in order to maximize inspiration and therefore your use of your vital capacity.
[/Old Guy's Dander]

[peter birch]

no, you cannot strengthen your diaphragm, but you can do things to help it work efficiently, the most important of which is to keep your weight under control as you get older. A big belly splints the diaphragm and stops it moving down and therefore reduces the volume of the thoracic cavity.
I think we sometimes ignore the fact that playing the tuba is a considerable physical activity, we don't prepare as we would for a race, or a gym session or a football game, and don't pay as much attention to our general physical condition as we should.
Breathing exercises are great, and we should use them as part of our practice and rehearsal routine, but they affect abs, chest and shoulder muscles, not the diaphragm.

[Karl H.]

Sigh...

1. I, and any other listener, don't care how much you can breath in or how forcefully you can blow air out, nor how strong your diaphragm or any other muscle is: we care about how you sound.

2. If being a great tuba player required additional abdominal strength of any kind we would have flat-bellied crossfit guys sitting in all the major chairs worldwide. (And absolutely no disrespect to anyone, but many of us would not need a calculator to add up the situps we've done in the last six months. It is even possible that the stereotypical 'fat tuba player' may be the ideal: the extra belly fat weight might slightly aid the collapse of the thoracic cavity during exhalation!)

3. Consider strengthening your musical concepts and developing your ears: you will make larger strides in your development as a musician than you will through any physical exercise.

4. If you want to work on maximal air exchange, blow up an air mattress every day.

Karl "trying to channel much positive energy" H.

[Roger Lewis]

If you want to increase the function of the breathing muscles you could try:

This:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 1V00HJ0155" target="_blank" target="_blank

Or This:

https://www.chponline.com/store/cart.ph ... tail&p=211" target="_blank" target="_blank

Or you can go to YouTube and work out with Sam and Pat in the Breathing Gym Exercises:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEz0ku-oXM4" target="_blank" target="_blank

Or you can just practice. Personally I think you are 'way over thinking it. Just breathe and blow - it's that easy.

Roger

[sailn2ba]

Check out David Vining's Routines. He specializes in breathing, tone support, and several other fundamental aspects in separate exercises.

[happyroman]

I think that many posters have gotten far off the point in this thread, and have made it about being right, rather than being helpful.

For the OP, it is moot whether the diaphragm is a voluntary or involuntary muscle. The idea that one would want to "strengthen" the muscles used in respiration is a poor one. Strength in these muscles, such as might be associated with athletic endeavors (in order to take a punch in the gut) or isometric contractions (such as in defecation or child birth), grossly inhibit our ability to move air efficiently. If we remember what Jake said, "Strength is my enemy, weakness is my friend" we will all be better off.

What the OP wants to do is learn to use the breath more efficiently, a task for which there are many resources available, including the work by Pilafian (Breathing Gym). There are also numerous published examples of Mr. Jacobs breathing exercises available if one knows how to Google. Finally, any of the books about Mr. Jacobs will contain lots of info on the efficient use of the breath, including descriptions of the breathing devices he used in his studio, versions of which are available for very reasonable prices.

[Untersatz]

It is even possible that the stereotypical 'fat tuba player' may be the ideal: the extra belly fat weight might slightly aid the collapse of the thoracic cavity during exhalation!

Works for me..............

Chubby Tuba Player.jpg

[ppalan]

Well, that's one way to keep drips off of your shoes....

[NCSUSousa]

I know this may sound stupid but can anyone give me some tips.

Since nobody has mentioned it, I will. Check this out: http://www.trainingmask.com/
I have never seen one in person. I have seen TV ads during UFC broadcasts.
It looks like it's designed specifically to strengthen the diaphram (that's what it claims anyway).

[Slamson]

Holy Cow! That training mask scared the crap out of me!

Sure, it will make your pulmonary system (note that I included the whole system) work harder, which I think is where the OP will eventually wind up, but meanwhile by reducing intake you're depriving the brain of some oxygen. I don't know about you, but too much of my youth was spent killing off brain cells at an alarming rate to risk something like that.

So I would broaden (not divert) this discussion to more than just the diaphragm. The best advice I've seen so far is basically "use it", but of course some folks (singers as well as tubists) have a "deeper" (pun intended for pedagogical purposes) concept of what the diaphragm actually does. Inhaled air goes into our lungs. They can't expand a whole lot up or sideways because of the cage protecting them. Training the diaphragm to distend lower than normal breathing function isn't rocket science - in fact, look at any newborn baby breathe - they are almost always perfect examples of diaphragmatic breathers (especially when they are about to cry.)
The breathing gym, "the bag", forced or spontaneous yawning exercises, 1.5 inch PVC pipes shoved in your mouth, and other techniques will all activate the part of your brain that says "need more air!". Once that happens the brain automatically:
Drops your jaw
Opens your throat
expands your lungs
and-
Lowers the diaphragm.
What you do with it after that is called "practice".
Personally, I believe that the diaphragm can become more flexible with good diaphragmatic breathing, but that's not a sign of strength. Elasticity is more like it. Over the years I have marveled at some colleagues who seem to be able to allow their entire abdominal area to expand to accommodate the lowering of the diaphragm, both singers and tubists. Still waiting for a flute player to hold still long enough to check them out.