Diaphragmatic breathing with activation of abdominal belt (Pelizzari's Manual of freediving)

[Jo_duiker]

I finally got to buy the "Manual of freediving" by Umberto and Stefano. Besides being stoked to learn, I'm overwhelmed - there's a lot of stuff to process, and so littly time to do that.

Anyway... My question is about "activating the abdominal belt" for diaphragmatic breathing. It says in the manual that physically and visually expanding the belly (like a balloon) is not advisable for diaphragmatic breathing. But as you will have guessed: this is exactly how I've been doing it all along. And I do feel my diaphragm "sink" down, so I'm filling the bottom part of my lungs.

Now I'm puzzled. Umberto and Stefano advise to "activate the abdominal belt", so the belly does not expand when doing diaphragmatic breathing while (of course) still lowering the diaphragm.

How on earth does one do that? I try to tense up my belly muscles (activate the abdominal belt?) and I do feel my diaphragm lowering itself but my belly still expands when doing diaphragmatic breathing. Not as much as before (like half the volume), but still...
Also, when trying this, I don't feel like taking a really full breath in combination with the thoracic breathing like I used to while expanding my belly.

Is this something to bother or worry about or am I overreacting here?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Kray]

Not sure what they mean but the lowest breathing section is ballooning the belly. The middle section is expanding the rib cage to the side. Imagine yourself as an enlarging frog. To really fill up, you have to start from the belly, then rib cage following by chest, then optionally shoulder, then optionally packs

 

[Jo_duiker]

Not sure what they mean but the lowest breathing section is ballooning the belly. The middle section is expanding the rib cage to the side. Imagine yourself as an enlarging frog. To really fill up, you have to start from the belly, then rib cage following by chest, then optionally shoulder, then optionally packs

Thanks for replying. I asked the "master" himself and got the answer: the belly should not move. Well, that's quite hard to do while still belly breathing, right? Anyway, he rightfully said it's hard to explain through mail but he did give a tip to train: wear a belt on my belly and make 2 cm longer so the belly should not touch the belt when belly breathing.

This is hard! I think I'll stick to expanding my belly for now!