We’ve already touched on the double layer of intercostals muscles sandwiched between your ribs. Your big diaphragm, however, is simply the superhero of all breathing muscles! It is a complex, uneven elastic floor across the bottom of your ribcage, directly under your lungs and on top of your liver, stomach, pancreas and spleen. Since your lunch has to get from your mouth into the acid pit of your stomach, your esophagus passes through a tight (hopefully) opening in the diaphragm.
Although you can easily find your intercostals between your ribs, don’t even bother poking around in search of your diaphragm because it is fairly well buried. To further complicate matters, it doesn’t lie flat and neat like the bottom of a bucket or the floor of a birdcage. At the finish of each exhalation, the diaphragm resembles a lopsided hill with the high side rising up and over your big liver on the right. The diaphragm is completely elastic, powerful, responsive and cooperative. The domed diaphragm you see in the picture is in the exhalation position. When you inhale it flattens down ever so slightly and that creates a vacuum that draws in your next breath.
Be well. Breathe beautifully.
