Welcome 2022 with all its challenges and all its gifts!
By Leticia Trejo
Dear readers of Semanario Laguna, this introduction gives me the opportunity to share with you something I tell my students in my yoga classes: Welcome all bodily sensations, comfortable and uncomfortable. When we begin the process of returning to physical activity after many years of not doing anything with discipline and constancy, it is common for our bodies to ache. Muscles and joints that for years have not received the special attention of self-care do not recognize the activity and respond by manifesting pain.
Another common sensation is shortness of breath. We try to follow the new routine – whether it’s twenty minutes on the treadmill or elliptical, a yoga or spinning class, or a tennis match – whatever activity we choose to get moving again represents an effort that feels enormous. And of course, the most important muscles for any routine, or extra-ordinary, activity of the day are now shrunken, shortened and atrophied.
At the risk of making this sound too technical, there are muscles that we should know about, and one of these is the diaphragm. The diaphragm is the most important muscle for respiration, responsible for seventy-five percent of the total function of taking in oxygen and removing toxins and carbon dioxide from the body. So if you, like me, thought it was the lungs that deserved all our attention, you now have more accurate information on how to help the lungs perform their important functions.
To be more precise: the lungs do not function without the work of the diaphragm. To give you a clearer picture, this muscular structure lives inside the ribcage; it is mushroom-shaped and acts like a parachute, filling with air when you inhale and collapsing when you exhale. It fills the entire circumference of the ribcage, and as it moves it massages the heart, the lungs, and the esophagus – the valve that prevents gastric juices (acids) from going up into your throat from your stomach. As if that were not enough, it is responsible for you being able to climb stairs without getting tired, or climb a hill without gasping, as well as for reducing or eliminating one of the most uncomfortable and annoying activities that some of us engage in: snoring. How does it do that? -When you learn how to prepare it, train it, and strengthen it, thereby making it more elastic.
An alarming fact is that, out of all the capacity of this important muscle, most people use only two percent. It can extend a total of ten centimeters, but ninety percent of people cannot make use of their diaphragm’s full capacity due to weakness or deterioration of this muscle. To phrase it in stark perspective, if ten centimeters of capacity equals one hundred percent life, then two centimeters would be eighty percent death. I don’t want to be dramatic, but I see it every time I train or teach someone who has years of not moving everything, and everything is extremely difficult for them.
There are special exercises to work this muscle and to achieve its maximum capacity. My most important advice in this column is: before forcing yourself to do intense physical activity, first train the diaphragm.
And as an extra gift I give you one more important fact: fat is not “burned,” and sweat is not fat. Fat goes through an oxidation process that turns it into vapor and liquid that come out through urine, feces and exhalation. A strong and elastic diaphragm will bring in a large amount of oxygen which will decrease your visceral fat levels, and visceral fat is the fat that surrounds your organs such as your heart, liver, kidneys, etcetera. A strong and elastic diaphragm will help eliminate a lot of fat, among other toxins. So if you really want to get in shape, take this information to heart! See you next week with more wellness tips.
Translated by Rebecca Zittle
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