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. 2021 Feb 2;57(2):129.
doi: 10.3390/medicina57020129.

Breathing Exercise Called the Maximal Abdominal Contraction Maneuver

Jung Won Kwon  1 , Seo Yoon Park  2 , Ki Hyun Baek  2 , Kyoungsoo Youk  3 , Seunghue Oh  2
Affiliations

Breathing Exercise Called the Maximal Abdominal Contraction Maneuver

Jung Won Kwon et al. Medicina (Kaunas). .

Abstract

Background and objectives: The maximal abdominal contraction maneuver (MACM) was designed as an effective and efficient breathing exercise to increase the stability of the spinal joint. However, it has not been determined whether MACM is more effective and efficient than the maximal expiration method. Thus, the present study was undertaken to investigate whole abdominal muscle thickness changes after MACM. Materials and Methods: Thirty healthy subjects (17 males and 13 females) participated in this study. An experimental comparison between MACM and the maximal expiration task was conducted by measuring the change of abdominal muscle thickness such as the transverse abdominis (TrA), internal oblique (IO), external oblique (EO) and rectus abdominis (RA) using ultrasound images. Results: The results indicated that MACM resulted in significantly greater muscle thickness increases of the TrA and RA than the maximal expiration exercise (p < 0.05). Conclusion: MACM provided better exercise than the maximal expiration exercise in terms of increasing spine stability, at least from a co-contraction perspective.

Keywords: abdominal muscle; breathing exercise; co-contraction; core muscle; ultrasound images.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The breathing exercise of maximum expiration and maximal abdominal contraction maneuver (MACM). (A) Maximum expiration. (B) MACM.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Example ultrasound images of the abdominal muscles. (A) Ultrasound image of external oblique (EO), internal oblique (IO) and transversus abdominis (TrA). (B) Ultrasound image of rectus abdominis (RA).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Result of mean muscle thickness. EO: external oblique muscle; IO: internal oblique muscle; TrA: transverse abdominis; RA: rectus abdominal muscle; MACM: maximal abdominal contraction maneuver. * There was a significant difference between the MACM and maximal expiration (p < 0.05).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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