What you are you indicate by your chest. if you would fight, your chest is advanced: if you dare not fight, your chest retires first. In every noble emotion your chest depicts its nature by the position and shape it assumes: it is elevated in pride, it swells with grandeur, thrusts itself out with haughtiness, is solid and symmetrical in courage, and moves it’s wall in harmony with the degree of feeling displayed. In ignoble emotions, all these evidences are in opposites. No other part of the body is capable of so much exhibition of the condition of the soul force.

The reason for chest extension is to acquire natural oxygen and to develop the great human reservoir that is to hold it. Chest extension means more life and less disease; more lungs and less waste flesh, more good nature and less irritability. Leaving out of mind the big framed forms with small lungs within them, it may be safely asserted that a person who possesses a large pair of lungs in a large chest, will witness very little of those diseases that attack the throat , chest, bronchial passages and lungs. Instances can be cited until the truth becomes wearisome, of men and women in consumption who have not only recovered from the disease, but have also added a large measure of good health to a permanent restoration. Chest extension means a larger opportunity for the lungs themselves to spread. Post mortems often show masses of air-cells undeveloped and of course unused, proving that people have more lungs than room in the chest for them.

This organ is  more or less  abused,  particularly by collapse.  This is due to its rising while the chest is falling, producing a sigh.  People who let the breath  fall out are in a weak state, and the habit should be cured by strengthening the diaphragm. This is best effected by compelling it to hold the contents above it in place, by its outer muscles; leaving it free to move by its inner muscles, using its outer leverage. To do this difficult exercise, raise the whole chest, lift the vital organs and breath naturally and fully while doing so. Massage about the diaphragm is excellent. It is performed by placing the hands at the sides and moving them toward the center, over the stomach, then in reverse. Repeat this one hundred times a day, if the diaphragm seems weak.

The principle is simple: every inhalation must energize the chest: every expiration must be energized by the abdomen. Yet, simple as it is, much care is required to perform the parts correctly. In the first place the entire chest, front, upper, middle, lower, and the sides should expand easily, freely, smoothly and fully, but almost imperceptibly, while the breath is being drawn in. There must be no action of the shoulders, and no effort at breath-getting. In the last place,the breath should be urged out by the abdomen, gently but firmly. Here the chest will be tempted to fall. It will require one year of constant attention to respiration to make this method of breathing a semi-habit. For months there will be a feeling of suffocation in the lower chest. This may be overcome by a complete and lengthy exhalation, followed by a natural breath.