00:00What exactly is the diaphragm anyway? We can see a little bit of it here between the ribs,
00:06so it's attached to the lower ribs, it's attached to the lower part of the sternum,
00:13there it is, so it's also attached to the lumbar vertebrae back there. It's a skeletal muscle
00:19and it's forming a dome when it's relaxed. Being a skeletal muscle that means you can choose to
00:26control it and move it if you want to, but most of the time your brainstem will move it for you,
00:31so you don't have to think about breathing. When it's relaxed it forms this dome shape,
00:35meaning there's not a lot of space up here for the lungs, so you breathe out,
00:39and when it contracts it flattens down, pulls in, gives much more space for the lungs and you
00:45breathe in, but it pushes this stuff down as well. The nerve that innervates the diaphragm
00:50is the phrenic nerve.
Comments