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Lean back?


josh161

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I had the honor of seeing both Maynard and Arturo perform live. They werent together, and the performances were a couple years apart, but I still felt like I was on top of the world to see such a show. :smile:

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The rational i have heard for leaning back is that it puts tension in your abs and diaphragm that allows you to push air better. Is this accurate?

If anything, it would stretch out those muscles, making them less effective.

Also, the diaphragm does not "push." It contracts on the inhale and relaxes on the exhale.

But still, it worked for Mendez.

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Excuse my improper use of anatomy terminology. The abs are what push air back up, correct? By leaning back you put more tension in the abs correct? Which would put more pressure on the outgoing air? right?

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I'm not sure that the abdominals play that much of a role in exhaling. If they do, it's probably just by compressing the internal organs and forcing them up into the chest to put pressure on the lungs. Of course, this also forces the intestines down, into the pelvis and groin, which can cause wonderful hernias.

The intercostal muscles of the rib cage probably play a larger role in compressing the lungs. Maybe the abdominals help keep the lungs from moving downward when they are squeezed by the ribs.

In any case, leaning back may put more tension on the abdominals, but that doesn't necessarily help them contract more efficiently. Muscles are generally most efficient in the middle of their length range, not too short or too long.

Have you ever done sit-ups with using a bar, so that your upper body hangs below your legs? What's the hardest part of the sit-up? It's the first part, when the body is moving up to horizontal. That's probably because the the muscle is less efficient when it's stretched out.

As someone said earlier, the most efficient posture for playing is standing straight up. Leaning back and other moves are just for show.

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The intercostal muscles (the ones between the ribs) are really the most important ones for us players.

The diaphragm works harder when you are taking a dump than when you are playing your horn.

Yes, it is bad to lean like that.....mostly because of the bending and flexing to your windpipe and brochial tubes....but it makes you feel like a bad*&%. In the 70's and 80's I had lots of fun doing it! :smile:

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I have always wondered what would happen if you were hooked up to those body suits that the EMT'S use to push the blood up to the upper part of the body.

Medical AntiShock Trousers (MAST) or Pneumatic AntiShock Garments (PASG), and from a muscial performance standpoint, nothing. they use air bladders to press the legs and lower abdomen to theoretically 'autotransfuse' blood from the lower limbs back to vital organs in the event of shock. Not enough pressure to really affect/assist playing performance, but probably enough to give you a bad head buzz.

Plus they are darned hard to jazz run in...... :smile:

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I should also add one final thing.

The diaphragm is an involuntary muscle, meaning that you have absolutely no control of it other than if you halt the inhale or exhale voluntarily. What you experience when you breathe in is an expansion of the lungs in the chest and a semi inflation of the abdomen. That inflation is not that air is escaping into the abdomen from the lungs, but the lungs are now occupying more space inside the body by means of inhalation. This expansion means that the diaphragm now makes room for the lungs by flexing itself and pushing the intestines out of the way for this process. Now, you can also push out your abdomen voluntarily, but that does not involve the diaphragm because you are not breathing to make this happen in a natural state. Saying you can control the diaphragm is saying that you can control your heartbeat at your own will. Physical exercise does effect the heart rate, but you can't consciously control your own heartbeat by willing it to beat faster or slower.

Voluntary muscles are those that you have control over. Fingers, arms, legs, toes, back muscles, chest muscles, abdominals and facial muscles are all things that you can control at will. The are also muscles that you can make stronger by means of exercises and physical fitness level.

You can't really make your diaphragm stronger or weaker, it is what it is.

You can make your heart muscle larger, but that comes from being overweight or obese. The heart muscle has to pump more blood into the body to keep it alive and active. This, of course is not healthy.

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  • 1 month later...

Coming from the era when it started, we just did it ti project to the box. We were told to do it so that you don't choke off your air by just tilting your head up.

As for abs and that other stuff, I don't know. Seems to me you get the best power to your abs when you are in a crunch which is the opposite of arching back. Like when you take a dump, do you lean forward or do you lean back hahaha!!

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I wonder if anyone in drum corps history has fallen over backwards while soloing like that?

Ahem. Well. See.

I... uhm... I have a tendency to undulate(read:lean) on the last BIG NOTE of a show... you know the one. That last one. The big one. The LOUD one.

Well... I've never exactly fallen when doing this. But last year, at semi-finals, I came awwwwwwwfuly darn close. As in, there was a few hundredths of a second wherein my exhilaration of reaching the end of the show was replaced with sheer terror at the thought of losing that last bit of balance and landing right on my backside.

That would have been embarrassing. Thankfully, I did not fall, we made finals, and that next night, I didn't undulate quite so much.

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Not much to add I guess. But I can tell you that as an Army Musician I NEVER had to practice sit-ups in my off hours to maintain the physical standards. Playing my horn (trombone) took care of all of that for me. Running I handled by ridding my bicycle 100 miles a week (most times at 2am in the morning, the only time off I had at that time). And for push ups, well, there's just no substitute for the real thing. As pointless and annoying as it was.

I do on occasion lean back, but it's more of a showmanship type thing. When doing some sort of massed formation where you stand still for twenty minutes, you've got to do something because whole notes just aren't that interesting. Plus it lets you watch the video later and say, there I am... Even twenty years later, there I am... (in the middle of an ensemble of 400) Of course it helps if you have a front heavy horn that lets you keep your balance. Back in the day I used to be able to go all the way to the ground and back up. Not that I'd even attempt such a thing these days.

I can't say that it ever helped my playing in particular. But I can say that having played some of the upper brass horns in recent years, that the abs are used a lot more there than on the larger horns. On the low end, it's all air volume / quantity. On the high end it's more air pressure and air speed. Which takes a lot of ab tension.

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