Diaphragm release

[Alon]

Hi, everyone!

 

Many years ago I started classical voice training with the hope of becoming an opera singer.  I had a persistent problem that I could not shake off and eventually gave up on music.  Every time I sang, within seconds or minutes I began to feel tension in the right side of my neck and upper right shoulder, eventually I would strain the vocal cords so badly that I just had to stop singing (and sometimes even talking!) for the day.  At some point in my search a highly trained Iyengar Yoga instructor told me I had a very tight diaphragm and that that caused me to place too much tension on the vocal cords in order to produce sound, which eventually hurt my neck and upper right shoulder muscles.  The problem got so bad that even talking stressed my muscles.  The problem was always random, meaning the time it took from starting to sing until I felt too much pain was always different, so I couldn't figure out what was causing it.  Eventually I just gave up...

...then I discovered this place and in the hope of addressing the problem (if the Yoga teacher's diagnosis was correct) and - who knows? - maybe even return to singing one day, I wanted to ask: 

Is there an ST exercise specifically for the diaphragm (and any other muscle related to voice production)?

Thank you so much!

 

P.S. I discovered ST right around the time Corona started so I managed to keep up a regular practice of the beginner's program for a few weeks until quarantines and lockdowns made life at home too difficult to continue.  The system did me wonders and I am extremely grateful for it.  Thank you, Kit and Olivia!

 

P.P.S. I just remembered that in a different context I was told I had very shallow breathing.  I'm sure that's also diaphragm related, no?

[Jim Pickles]

Nobody has replied yet - but I'll give it a go. I suggest that its not a matter of the diaphragm being too tight, but that you are not using it (and its connections) in the best way. I suggest you are breathing too much with the upper ribs, and not enough with the lower ribs and diaphragm. Look at books by Leslie Kaminoff (e.g. Yoga Anatomy) - he explains in detail the relation between the ribs and diaphragm when breathing. Its not a question of "abdomen breathing" as often said - its not a question of deliberately pushing out the abdomen; rather the abdomen get pushed down to accommodate the diaphragm as the diaphragm moves down, driven by the contraction of the muscles of the diaphragm (which is dome-shaped upwards) and the outwards sideways movement of the lower ribs to which it is indirectly attached. I suggest you try to breathing deep in your lungs and concentrate on trying to move your lower ribs out sideways. I'd have thought at in your singing training you'd have been taught this. By the way, if you want to "stretch your diaphragm" (not sure if that is a real concept*) then try breathing in as much as possible by using the LOWER ribs as much as possible, not the upper part of the chest, and keeping the abdomen relaxed.

*The muscles of the diaphragm are longest when you have breathed OUT most, as then the diaphragm will have its greatest dome shape, rising up into the centre of the rib cage. When you breathe in, the muscles shorten, pulling the diaphragm and bottom of the chest cavity down.

[Kit_L]

@Alon: 

On 12/19/2021 at 8:10 AM, Alon said:

within seconds or minutes I began to feel tension in the right side of my neck and upper right shoulder,

Unlikely to be the diaphragm. Pain the area you describe is likely to be the scalenes; we have an excellent exercise to eliminate this possibility:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8ko2hjOo_4

The magic of this approach to stretching the scalenes is that the first rib is pulled down by the shoulder girdle and that is one of the attachment points of the anterior and medial scalenes. In this approach, we do not need to bend the neck sideways (if you're tense, that can cause cramps on the side of the neck you are bending towards). As well, these are the muscles which become tense when we are breathing from the upper ribs – and this is strongly correlated with anxiety. When people are stressed, this is emblematic of their breathing pattern. Try this exercise first, and then try singing a scale or two and see whether that area feels any different.

@Jim Pickles: it is possible to stretch (as in lengthen) the diaphragm; the full bridge does just that.

@Alon: There's another pesky place that could also be explored: while standing relaxed, place your fingers over that part of the abdomen where the palm of your hand is on your lowest rib and your fingers are on your tummy. Take a breath in and as you breathe out slide your fingers over the ribs and curl your fingers so that the tips of your index and middle fingers are pressing on those two sensitive places near the midline of the body – this is where your abdominal muscles attach to the ribs and also where the diaphragm joins the ribs. These two places are potent trigger points! If you can bear it, really press your fingertips on those sore points, and then very gently try to lift the ribs out and up. I have done this release on many workshop attendees, and they tell me that the entire abdominal area and breathing itself feels completely different afterwards, so I am assuming this has some effect at least on the diaphragm itself.

[Atoshi]

Hi Alon, if you're still around!  I'm a serious-but-not-yet-professional opera singer, and I've spent untold hours over the past ten years dealing with these things in my own body.  I'd be happy to discuss this with you by email if it becomes off-topic for these forums.

I don't know what you and your teachers tried before you stopped singing, so what I'm saying below may be old news to you, but here's my experience:

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and that that caused me to place too much tension on the vocal cords in order to produce sound, which eventually hurt my neck and upper right shoulder muscles.

Creating tension in the throat when you produce sound is a universal problem - absolutely everybody is vulnerable to it - and I would say that releasing and preventing that tension is THE central goal of vocal technique.  So I'm quite sure that your problem has a solution and that you will be able to return to singing!

A tense or sluggish diaphragm is almost certainly part of the picture; you probably lack the strength and agility in your breathing muscles to control the airflow in the way you want, and therefore you may unconsciously be trying to stabilize the airflow using the neck and shoulder muscles.  (The exercise that Kit describes, of curling your fingers in under your ribcage, is a great way to feel what the diaphragm is up to, and to cause it to activate while you sing.)  Better-organized breathing will naturally decrease neck/shoulder tension.

The best discussion I've found on breathing and support is in the book Finding Your Voice, by Barbara Houseman.  It's aimed at actors, but the basics are the same as for singers; it's well organized and easy to read, and the exercises are fantastic.  Another excellent book, though longer and more technical, is Freeing the Natural Voice, by Kristin Linklater.

In general, in building my own technique, I haven't found it helpful to focus too long on any particular muscle group.  Breathing and support come from so many interactions between the diaphragm, the ribcage, the abs, the back muscles, the pelvic floor, the hips....  Strengthening and conditioning those muscles is a gradual process; you need to work on them a little at a time, while monitoring how the whole system is functioning.  At any given time, you want to be aware of what your breathing and support muscles currently enable you to do comfortably with your voice, and do only that much - no more.  If you try to sing too powerfully or sustain long phrases when your torso isn't ready, you'll hurt your throat.  The same will happen if you have a naturally big voice and try to sing softly when your torso isn't ready.

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Every time I sang, within seconds or minutes I began to feel tension in the right side of my neck and upper right shoulder, eventually I would strain the vocal cords so badly that I just had to stop singing (and sometimes even talking!) for the day.

In particular, here: you need to stop and relax fully as soon as you begin to feel the tension - not push through until you physically can't produce sounds anymore.  There's no such thing as 'too much pain' here; any pain at all is too much.  You want to build the habit of singing with comfort, not the habit of singing with discomfort.  The range of what is comfortable will naturally expand with time.

The training paradigm that works for me is that when I notice individual muscles that need attention (e.g. the diaphragm), I spend a week or two on purely physical exercises to explore and condition them.  But meanwhile, I keep circling back to a set of vocalises and phrases from my repertoire (only what's absolutely comfortable and easy!), to re-synthesize - to experience my breathing and sound-production as a whole.  As the physical exercises recondition my diaphragm, there are changes in the way it behaves spontaneously while I'm singing.  Then I might find that a different area (e.g. the way I open my mouth) needs to be adjusted to accommodate those changes, and I spend a week focusing on that.

It's extremely useful to try breathing and producing sounds in unaccustomed postures: sitting on the floor; on your hands and knees; in a loose forward bend; walking around; crawling; leaning with your back against a wall.  This can help you 'reset' from bad habits (such as one-sided shoulder tension), as those will be unavailable and your body will automatically create a new way to produce the sound.  Or, sometimes, your new posture will help you discover what the bad habit was; e.g. leaning against a wall may help you feel what body part you were tensing.

(I say 'producing sounds' advisedly: the goal is not to 'sing' or to sound good when you do this, but to find ease.  You want to free yourself from whatever was going wrong 'within seconds or minutes' when you used to sing.  (You don't necessarily need to identify what it was, as long as you can make it stop happening!)  The sounds could be sung notes, or they could be simply sighs, hums, grunts, normal speech, baby talk, animal noises.  All of those sounds can eventually be transformed into a healthy operatic singing voice, without the baggage from your previous mode of singing.)

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Is there an ST exercise specifically for the diaphragm (and any other muscle related to voice production)?

So, I think all muscles are related to voice production!  That said, the aspects of ST that have helped me the most with my singing are (1) exercises to improve my overall alignment (shoulders and pelvic tilt were/are my big issues) and (2) the relaxation practice, which has made me more sensitive to whether and where there's tension.  The relaxation practice is also likely to be helpful for you if your breath is shallow: it's not a place where you'll experience the big deep breaths that you'll ultimately need for singing, but it can help you discover what a spontaneous (not pushed) low breath is like.

[Kit_L]

@Atoshi: thank you sincerely for this in-depth and detailed response.