Cupping guides

The diaphragm: how your most important breathing muscle works, signs of a tight diaphragm, why you should breathe with your belly, exercises that free it, and cupping of the chest and rib margins

The diaphragm is the dome-shaped muscle under the lungs that does 80 per cent of the breathing work, pumps lymph and blood back from the abdomen, stabilises the back together with the trunk muscles and sets the nervous system's pace via the vagus nerve. When it is tight or underused, from stress, slumped posture, a held-in stomach and habit, the neck and shoulders take over the breathing: shallow chest breathing, tense shoulders, side stitch, stiff upper back, poorer trunk stability, reflux and a body that can't shift down. Here is how the diaphragm works, the signs it isn't doing its job, a self-test, why belly breathing calms and helps the back, five exercises that free and train it, and how cupping of the front of the chest, the rib margins and the upper back is used to give the breath room.