Breathing Series, Part 3 of 4
Introduction
Two parts of this column have addressed breathing so far. After the exhalation has run its course, a command travels from the respiratory center of the brain stem to the spinal cord; the muscles required for inhalation contract, and the ribs expand (see “Exhaling Takes No Effort — Conscious and Unconscious Breath“). The diaphragm plays an important role in this (see “The Diaphragm Reaches the Skull — Breath and the Placement of the Organs“).
This part addresses the relation between the body — muscle and bone — and gravity. The function of muscle lies not only in movement but also, importantly, in maintaining posture. Since the standpoint of posture matters when considering breathing, the theme is worth taking up.
What Are Extensors and Flexors
Maintaining posture against gravity involves two groups: the extensors, a set of muscles on the back of the legs and body that participate in postural maintenance, and the flexors, a set on the front of the body that do the same. The figure below shows the extensors clearly.
Unless these muscle groups are lengthened, the skeleton collapses forward. Two muscle groups joining the neck and the pelvis matter most among the extensors.
On the left of the figure are the transversospinales, the deepest muscle group — called in English the inner muscles or deep postural muscles. They consist of the semispinalis above, the multifidus in the middle, and the rotatores below, joining the transverse processes of the lumbar vertebrae to the spinous processes of the cervical vertebrae. The transversospinales serve to straighten and lengthen the spine.
On the right is the erector spinae: the lateral group called the iliocostalis, the intermediate medial group the longissimus, and the innermost group the spinalis. The erector spinae participates in stabilizing the upper body. When something is lifted or a squat is taken, it keeps the ribs and the organs in front of the spine from collapsing forward and downward.
What is interesting is that the skull, being heavier in front than behind, moves downward at the front under gravity.
The skull tips forward constantly, and as a result the extensors described above are lengthened. This alone, however, carries the risk that the ribs will descend and the organs at the front will be pushed outward. Here the flexors enter.
The front of the body holds not only the ribs but a concentration of organs. The flexors work to prevent the ribs from descending and to support the weight of the organs. Specifically: the abdominal rectus, running upward from the pelvis; the sternocleidomastoid, joining the ribs and the skull; and the iliopsoas, positioned in front of the spine and joining the lumbar vertebrae to the pelvis.
The sternocleidomastoid, joining the ribs to the back of the skull, supports the ribs from above; the iliopsoas plays a role in lengthening the lumbar and thoracic vertebrae.
In sum, extensors and flexors seek harmony with gravity in the balance shown below.
The Effect on Posture
When a problem arises in any of these muscle groups that maintain posture, breathing is affected. Rolfing attends to breathing because breathing serves as an index of how the body is dealing with gravity. With this in mind, consider inhalation.
In inhalation, one of the significant actions is the spreading of the ribs. Anatomy textbooks give the external intercostals, attaching to the outside of the ribs, the principal role in that spreading, and list the scalenes — attaching to the transverse processes of the cervical vertebrae (origin) and the first and second ribs (attachment) — as accessory muscles of breathing. Rolfing attends to the scalenes instead.
The scalenes, divisible by position into anterior, middle, and posterior, lift the upper ribs and the upper rib cage, and are one of the Tonic muscles capable of spreading the ribs with minimal muscular force (on the difference between Tonic and Phasic, see “Body and Mind (2): Tonic Function (1)” and “Body and Mind (3): Tonic Function (2)“).
The various arguments about the role of the scalenes probably arise because it shifts with posture, and with which attachment site on which bone the muscle moves from — that is, the Fixed Point. When the extensors are working and the skull sits in an appropriate position, the skull does not move; the head pulls on the scalenes. As a result, only the first and second ribs are lifted.
When posture is not organized — when the extensors are not working properly, for instance — the ribs pull on the scalenes, and the head is pushed forward and downward. Phasic muscle comes into use in place of Tonic muscle. Rolfing calls breathing in this condition Concentric breathing. Concentric denotes direction: centripetal, toward the middle (the left side of the figure below).
What Rolfing aims at, in organizing the body through the work, is two-directionality — Palintonicity (see “Basic Concepts — Bidirectionality (Palintonicity)“). This direction is called Eccentric, and the breathing Eccentric breathing (the right side of the figure). Eccentric means lengthening, or outward. Attending to two directions in the body is held to be what organizes Tonic muscle. The ten sessions are assembled in order to organize precisely this.
The next part will address the relation between gravity and breathing, and its relation to body reading in Rolfing.
References
Aline Newton; Breathing in the gravity field, Fall 1997, Rolf Lines Theodore Dimon Jr.; The Body in Motion: Its Evolution and Design
Note, August 2026
This piece was also written in February 2015, during the Phase III training. The terminology and internal references were put in order, and the whole was re-edited as a four-part series.
Breathing Series (Four Parts)
- Part 1: Exhaling Takes No Effort — Conscious and Unconscious Breath
- Part 2: The Diaphragm Reaches the Skull — Breath and the Placement of the Organs
- Part 3: When Posture Collapses, Breathing Changes — Extensors, Flexors, and the Scalenes (this article)
- Part 4: The Inhaling Body and the Exhaling Body — Breath Seen Through Gravity