Assessment at a Glance for Your Respiratory Function
I walked into LA Fitness the other day to do my daily exercise and noticed an Assessment Tool for members. Through a series of little tests, you could find out your Strength, Endurance and Stability for men and women based on your age. In other words, at my age I should be able to do 29 or more push-ups to achieve the “Excellent” status. (I’m happy to report, that I can do it!)
It made me think of some quick tests you can do to measure your own respiratory and laryngeal control. It is called the MPT (for Maximum Phonation Time) and it measures the efficiency of your respiratory system and your ability to maintain vocal cord closure. There are two tasks you can do to measure. You will need a stopwatch or a clock with a second hand.
Here is what you do:
Respiratory Efficiency
1. Take a breath and say “ah” (or any vowel). Hold it for as long as you can. When you begin saying the vowel, start the stop watch. When you can no longer hold the vowel, stop the stopwatch. How long were you able to maintain the vowel? Compare with the table below.
If you are not achieving the normal time, it could be that you have a faulty breathing pattern that you use or a faulty pattern of speaking that prevents you from getting full deep breaths. By changing the way you breathe, these numbers will rise. You may need to develop the strength of the diaphragm muscle and your core muscles to give you more power and support. Any kind of respiratory illness (asthma, allergies, respiratory infection, etc.) may also contribute to a lower score. Be sure to test when you are healthy. If you have a deeper concern with your support, ask your physician. Learning to use proper breath support for speech and voice is often one of the first tasks I work on with many of my clients.
Laryngeal Closure
1. Take a breath and hold on to the /s/ sound for as long as possible. Time it with your stopwatch.
2. Take a breath and hold on the /z/ sound for as long as possible. Time it with your stopwatch. Use the table to determine your ratio.
Your times for both the /s/ and the /z/ should be about the same. So if you held /s/ for 22 seconds, you should have held /z/ for about the same. If you did, you are achieving laryngeal closure! If you did not, take the /s/ value and divide it by the /z/ value like this example:
/s/=25 seconds
/z/=15 seconds
25/15=1.6 (s/z ratio)
This is the s/z ratio. The ratio should be less than 1.4. If greater than 1.4, your vocal cords are not coming together adequately. This can be caused by swollen cords, vocal nodules, etc. Your laryngeal control is compromised.
Everyone experiences temporary difficulties with their voices on occasion due to colds and allergies. If you have an unexplained chronic problem with breathiness, laryngitis, or vocal hoarseness, make an appointment with an Ears, Nose and Throat Specialist to determine if there is something more serious going on.
Are you interested in learning more or do you have some questions? Schedule a free strategy session today!
Tags: abdominal breahing, breath support, diaphragm, effective communication, normal breath measures, respiration for speech and voice, vocal hygiene