Client Home Care | Rib Expansion | Using the Diaphragm | Sports Massage | Soft Tissue Therapy
Client Home Care Tip - Use the diaphragm effectively. Teach them this easy-to-do rib expansion home care exercise!
If your client isn’t able to effectively use the lower portion of their ribs, they may have a tighter chest area. In order to make this more relaxed, you need to take the stress and tightness away from their diaphragm.
The following exercise can help:
➡️ Ask your client to place their fingertips together in the ribs area and RELAX (or ask them to melt, settle, let go ... etc)
➡️ Next, ask them to take a deep breath into their base and try to separate their fingertips
➡️ This doesn’t have to be a huge movement at first
➡️ Eventually, the expansion will increase as their awareness and proprioception become more in tune!
This exercise can assist to help to raise your client’s awareness around their rib cage to move more effectively and take the tension out of the diaphragm. With any work soft tissue therapy work that you do in the upper quadrant of the shoulders, it can have a knock-on effect to decrease the tension in the area, lessen the shallow chest breathing and transfer awareness to travel down to the base!
Hopefully, this is a helpful technique. Let us know in the comments if you have any other home care breathing exercises that you teach your clients!