"The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them knows anything about the subject."
- Marcus Aurelius
Table of Contents
Introduction
I (PectusConnectUs) created the PectusConnectUs method™, a non-surgical – bracing and vacuum bell – treatment for Pectus Excavatum and Pectus Carinatum patients.
To achive this, in the past 3 years I’ve read every literature what I’ve managed to find, from the most sophisticated studies to average people’s experiences. I’ve joined to every pectus related forums and groups on many platforms and spoke with dozens of sufferers. I’ve spent an awful lot of time just browsing pictures and videos, and trying to find the solution to overcome chest related deformities.
This method is an alternative to the surgical solutions (Nuss procedure, Ravitch procedure) for those who either can’t or don’t want to have a surgery, or just want to try the non-surgical way before taking surgery into consideration.
There are two original methods, which are the basis of my work. These methods date back to the 1970’s.
You will find the detailed explanation to both of these methods, with pictures and videos (from real experiences) so you can understand how they work. Also the inventors, their history, and the very first patients. Also their flaws what I’ve managed to overcome.
Basic laws
The base concept is actually really simple. If you know how dental braces work, you basically know how a chest brace works.
Julius Wolff (1836-1902) was a doctor, surgeon defined a famous law (Wolff’s law)
The bone tissue is a dynamic construction that can be modified according to exterior pressure. This means in practice, that if you put pressure (load) on any bone or cartilages in humans (or animals) the bone will remodel itself over time to become stronger to resist that sort of loading.
Henry Gassett Davis (1807-1896) was an orthopedic surgeon with another important law (Davis’s law)
This law is the corollary to the previous law, but instead of bones and cartilages, it’s applied to ligaments, tendons and fascia.
“Ligaments, or any soft tissue, when put under even a moderate degree of tension, if that tension is unremitting, will elongate by the addition of new material; on the contrary, when ligaments, or rather soft tissues, remain uninterruptedly in a loose or lax state, they will gradually shorten, as the effete material is removed, until they come to maintain the same relation to the bony structures with which they are united that they did before their shortening. Nature never wastes her time and material in maintaining a muscle or ligament at its original length when the distance between their points of origin and insertion is for any considerable time, without interruption, shortened.”
If we apply these laws in real life, you’ll find that teeth braces, scoliosis braces based on the same principles.
We also have examples which date back to thousands of years.
Kayan women from Asia, and Ndebele women from Africa wearing neck rings, in order to elongate it, which they belive make them beautiful.
Not just their necks, but their spinal vertabraes are longer than usual. Both the bones, and the soft tissue elongated, Wolff’s and Davi’s laws applies.
But the same principles applies to an old European (and North American) trend, which is the corseting of the ribs and stomach, by women.
As you can see on the drawings, due to the constant pressure by the corset, the ribcage got deformed (Wolff’s law), the breathing capability was reduced, but on top of that every organ had to be reorganized and some may shrunk (Davi’s law).
I have to highlight that this is a bad way of corseting, it’s driven by beauty and not health.
Dr Sydney Haje and his groundbreaking work with chest orthoses
In this video you can watch an interview with Dr Sydney Haje, where he explain his method and shows his braces.
Dr Sydney Abrao Haje (1952-2012) was a Brazilian orthopedist, who came up with the idea to use braces for pectus carinatum and excavatum. In 1977, he invented the “dynamic remodeling method” with which he treated close to 5.000 patients in his lifetime. There are multiple studies by him, also by his son (Davi P. Haje) who continues his father’s work.
“Therapeutic forces that are regularly applied on deformed bones and cartilage can create gradual reshaping in a beneficial and corrective direction. This mostly applies to the anterior chest wall, which is a very flexible region in the human body.” – Sydney A. Haje
All of these patients were advised to wear the brace(s) for 23 hours a day (but at least 18 hours), at least 5 times a week, together with special exercises.
First, he treated a Pectus Carinatum patient (in 1977) by making a plate which covered the protursion, and with applying force on that region, the carinatum started to sink back, and eventually the patient was pectus carinatum free!
10 years later, he came up with the idea, to use the same methodology on Pectus Excavatum patients.
[Maybe he overcorrected a Pectus Carinatum patient (which results in Pectus Excavatum) and that’s how he found out the importance of the lower ribs aka. rib flare – but this is just my theory.]
The excavatum patients received a brace for their lower ribs in the right shape and size, and in the same way as with the carinatum patients, pressure was applied on them. The pulled back lower ribs are creating a lever effect, and also, the patients doing the different exercises – creating intrathoracic pressure – resulted in that the sternum elevated (while the lower ribs sunk back) and eventually the patient became healthy.
Later he concluded, that most Pectus Carinatum patients better off to start with two braces, in order to avoid overcorrection, which meant that the patient developed an excavatum from the carinatum.
Same thing can happen with Pectus Excavatum patients, if overcorrected (see above picture) it becomes a Pectus Carinatum, which requires a new brace for it. Eventually overcorrection was recorrected, so the patient entered adult life healthy!
The success rate among those who wore the brace for 23 hours and who did the prescribed exercises regularly were really high (above 93%, much better than surgery).
But there were many patients who stopped the treatment early on, there were many who only used it for a couple of hours a day (as they didn’t want to go to public with the brace, or they couldn’t sleep in it) and there were many who stopped the treatment months after the start, due to losing interest or discipline in the program.
At 9:00 minutes in the interview:
– Interviewer: Is it better to use the equipment directly on the skin, or over the clothes?
– Dr Sydney Haje: Experience has shown us that patients who use the orthoses uninhibitedly, unashamed of the treatment they are undergoing, on top of a T-shirt get better results. Because this way they end up using the equipment more frequently.
Orthopectus clinic (Brasil): https://orthopectus.com.br/eng/
Examples of treated cases (braces)
In this picture, a 29 years old patient was treated. The second picture only 2 months after the first one. The whole treatment took 15 months.
In the following picture you can see an adult patient who did an incredible transformation in 6 months on his severe PE. You can see the skin discoloration where the braces applies pressure, but it goes away shortly after the end of treatment.
In this picture you can see a 49 years old patient who was treated within 8 months. This shows, that age doesn’t matter.
Here, you can see a young patient with pectus excavatum who got fully treated in a year.
Here, you can see an adult with a severe PE and a CT-scan before and after. The whole treatment took 12 months, his heart is no longer pushed by the ribs!
In this picture, you can see a 15 years old patient who managed to overcome a severe pectus carinatum within a year. In the middle, you can see the braces he wore.
In this picture, you can see a 27 years old patient with pectus carinatum, he reached the desired chest just in 2 months! The whole treatment took 16 months.
Here, you can see an interesting case, where the patients quite severe pectus carinatum turned into a pectus excavatum just in 2 months! The overcorrection was addressed, and after a year, he had a fully healed chest.
All of the above cases were published by Dr Sydney Haje or his son, in different studies. But now, I want to show a case which wasn’t published by them, but the patient used their brace.
I found this guy called humpadinkle on Reddit.
He had Pectus Excavatum, and used the rib flare brace by Sydney Haje.
Here’s the post.
Here you can see a short video posted by him, before he started the bracing.
These pictures were taken 8 months after the start of the treatment.
He didn’t even realise how much he progressed, this is why he made this post.
He made a lot of progression, altough he didn’t wear the brace that much, as he didn’t wear it for school and when meeting/going out with friends. We don’t know exact measurements, or exact wearing time, but we know that he was consistent with it, every single day.
Also you can see that his muscularity hasn’t changed a lot, but he must’ve do the prescribed training, but we have no data on that.
You can see that he isn’t flexing, and he took pictures from the side angle (where the dent is the most visible) so he isn’t “posing” to look better than his actual progression.
You can see that he still has a bit of rib flare, but his dent is basically gone.
Also, he didn’t wear it for school, and when meeting with friends, because he didn’t want anyone to see it.
This strenghten my biggest concern with bracing, and that’s visibility.
Okay... But how does it work, exactly?
If you still don’t understand how this method can fix your chest deformity, read this in-depth analysis by me:
In this picture you can see a pectus excavatum patient doing the “flexibility test”.
On the left (A) you can see the original condition, on the right (B) the test, which is:
The patient puts on the brace and he takes a deep breath (or blows up a balloon) creating intrathoracic pressure. With this test Dr. Sydney Haje measured the flexibility of the patient’s chest.
I think this test is overrated in how successul the outcome will be, because it doesn’t take into account Davis’s law, and how much tight tendons and muscles can restrict the mobility of the chest.
But, in this test you can clearly see how it’s going to fix the chest.
The lower ribs (rib flare) were pushed back by the brace, this way the patient wasn’t able to breathe incorrectly, because with the brace on, the incorrect stress breathing is impossible.
On top of that, solely wearing a brace creates a “lever effect” between the lower ribs and the sternum – this is how excavatum can turn into carinatum and vica versa, carinatum can become excavatum if overcorrected.
Instead of pulling all the air into his lower ribs, the patient had to use the the diaphragm muscle to fill up the lungs with air, creating intrathoracic pressure thus pushing the sternum out.
Summary on how the braces work
So to summarize, how the bracing fixes your chest:
1. The brace pulls the lower ribs (rib flare) in (this itself creates a lever effect)
2. The patient is wearing the brace, while breathing, training, stretching – creating opposing forces – intrathoracic pressure – to the sunken sternum
3. The body “realizes” that there is an external force (brace) which causing pressure, discomfort in the chest, plus there is an internal force (elevated intrathoracic pressure) so Wolff’s law and Davis’s law applies: the ribs (and all the muscles, tendons, ligaments, cartilages etc.) can’t fight this kind of pressure for long, so they have to relocate, in order to minimize the pressure (so the body doesn’t “suffer” from “unnecessary stress”)
4. Over time, the body reshapes itself as we control the force, and progressively overload it (rib flare is going back, while the sternum is coming out).
5. When the chest deformity is finally gone, the patient still needs to train, and wear the brace intermittently, or at a low resistance level, for a matter of months so the ribs (and everything with it) is able to solidify, so it won’t regress back.
6. After that, the patient is treated for life.
Flaws and missing elements in Sydney Haje's bracing method
Altough Dr Sydney Haje was an excellent orthopedist, a visionary and inventor – he wasn’t a physiotherapist, he wasn’t a coach and he didn’t had a deformed chest.
Because of this, his method has some flaws and missing some key features.
1. The size and visibility of the braces. It’s several (at least 3-4) inches thick. This is a deal breaker for most people. Those who don’t have confidence to begin with, can’t be asked to wear a big, metallic brace on top of their clothing. This way you’d draw a lot of attention to yourself, what you don’t want. People start to ask questions, and then you’d need to tell the truth. They accept it, or they start to bully you, you can’t be sure what’s going to happen. Even if no one bullies you, simply walking in the town, or going to shopping would be uncomfortable, as many unwanted eyes would be on you, and they’d start to talk behind your back.
2. Restrictions, lack of mobility. This brace restricts the patient in many ways. You can’t play a lot of sports, if you wear this, but on top of that your range of motion and mobility is restricted too. You can’t lay down on a bench, or push your upper abdominals to something (for example while bench pressing, T-bar rowing) etc. The patients were advised, to sleep with the device, but for me thats seems almost impossible.
3. Concentrating way too much on the bones (Wolff’s law) and not that much on the soft tissues [muscles, tendons and ligaments (Davis’s law)]. The more and more I’ve read and studied Dr Haje’s method the more obvious it became, that he didn’t care that much about the soft tissues. You can see it among many of the patients, that they almost fixed their chests in the first year (around 60-70% better than before the treatment), but it drastically slows down afterwards, the remaining 30-40% takes another 2-3 years(!). You can see it in the pictures that those patients whose posture, rounded shoulders, forward neck wasn’t fixed, their treatment took much longer than it should’ve been. The reason for this is that tight muscles and tendons restrict the bones and cartilages to move after a certain point. This way those patients who needed 3-4 years to get fixed, could’ve been fixed within a year.
4. Lackluster programming and imbalanced movements. So Dr Haje altough did programming, but it wasn’t extensive enough. As much data I’ve managed to gather about his programming one thing is obvious, he presribed much more pushing (chest and frontal deltoid oriented) exercises than pulling (back muscles) related movements. This is a huge mistake, especially if you take a closer look at the average patient. Rounded shoulders, kyphotic spine, tight pectoral muscles, elongated abdominal wall, etc. Even healthy people should do much more (at least 1.5 times more) pulling movements than pushing movements, let alone people with chest and spinal deformities. We need to compensate the bad posture, all the sitting in front of a PC, constantly looking at the phone with a rounded back and with a forward neck, etc…
5. Lack of supervision, overcorrected cases. Altough Dr Haje supervised his patients, but you can see that a lot of patients faced overcorrection. This is why weekly checkups are necessary.
Eckart Klobe and the invention of the vacuum bell theraphy
Dr Lewis Spitz (paediatric surgeon) and Dr Fritz Lange (orthopedic surgeon) experimented with vacuum bell jars to lift up sunken sternums in the early 1970’s. The problem was the material itself (glass) which wasn’t just uncomfortable but “chained” the patients to the bed, as moving wasn’t possible with such a device. Because of these factors, these experiments were unsuccesful.
Fast forward to the ’90s, a german chemical engineer, called Eckart Klobe (born in 1956) started to experiment with new materials for vacuum bells. Many people think that the inventor himself used these silicone vacuum bells → they are wrong!
Eckart Klobe used a rigid foam “bell” what he poured onto his chest. In this picture, you can see the device, the big pressure gauge, and the hose – it was connected to a hoover!
In the following short clip, you can see that he states that his treatment started at the age of 36 and ended at the age of 46! He adds, that it wasn’t consistent, and as far as I know, it took him 3 years with continous usage, from 1992 to 1995.
[There is a bit of controversy here, as he says he got started at the age of 36 and finished at the age of 46.
1956+36 = 1992
1956+46 = 2002]
Yet, he claims that he finished it by 1995, when he was actually 39 years old.
The problem with this, that I wasn’t able to find a before and after picture of him. There are no measurements, or study – nothing.
The only clips I’ve found about him where his chest is visible is that these are above, and if you look at his chest closely, he still has a mild indent and prominent flared ribs – altough he claims that he is treated.
His chest still looks weird, altough if we would measure his Haller index he would be probably in the healthy range.
After some time, in the early 2000s he made the widely known, white vacuum bells with acrylic tops, which are really popular among people. The reason for this is probably marketing, and the “immediate but not long lasting results”.
The sternum is lifted by the device, after taking it off it’s still lifted for a few hours, but after that it sinks back.
If we implement Wolff’s and Davis’s law to vacuum bells (as we did with braces), it should be clear, that vacuum bells needs to work.
After applying it consistently – every day – the sternum will sink back less, and less – eventually not sinking back at all. Right? Well, the truth is more shaded than a simple yes or no.
Key differences between the Eckart Klobe type of vacuum bells and bracing
1. Time: 23 hours or more daily → 6 times more wearing time
2. The created force (pressure) is better tolerated by the body and the skin.
You create pressure on the lower ribs, and with the lever effect and with proper breathing and training you create intrathoracic pressure to elevate the sternum upwards.
3. There is a passive part (wearing the brace) and an active part (breathing, training) at the same time.
This way the brace and the training creates a synergistic effect, so it’s going to be much more effective than just training and using the brace separately
1. The presricbed wearing time is 4-6 hours → 4-6 times less wearing time. Even if you’d want to wear it for longer you can’t hide these type of bells.
2. The created force (vacuum) is much more harsh on the skin than pressure.
(In nature we didn’t met with vacuum, so by an evolutionary standpoint we aren’t designed to withstand it)
You create vacuum on the sternum, and it’s lifting it up.
The lower ribs aren’t affected at all.
3. There is only a passive part (wearing the bell), there can’t be an active part as it’s dangerous also counter productive → pressure leak.
Therefore you need to compensate for the lack of compounding effects.
It seems like that the vacuum bell lost → no, it isn’t!
There is another point what only the vacuum bell has!
5. The vacuum bell is capable of stretching the
– intercostal muscles
– transversus thoracis
– levatores costarum
Stretching these muscles takes a long, and hefty time without such an equipment. These muscles with those who has pectus excavatum are shortened, meaning that they restrict your sternum to elevate. Several weeks or even months of work (stretching) can be done in a matter of hours with a vacuum bell.
Remember, that I’ve said that Dr Sydney Haje’s flexibility test shouldn’t determine how good the outcome will be → huge part of that is covered by the vacuum bell. It makes the chest, the muscles, tendons and ligaments much more softer, therefore easier to reshape.
But this is a double edged sword.
These muscles keep your chest in place, they even help you to breathe. Many vacuum bell users reported, that their chest sunk back even more than it was before. The reason for this is that these muscles got elongated and there weren’t strong stabilising muscles and intrathoracic pressure, so their chest got worse → if you not treat the root of the issue, the problem will always come back.
This is why it’s very dangerous that you can just buy a vacuum bell without any plan to how and when to use it, and also, without any proper exercises, and supervision.
The fastest way of treating yourself is if you combine both the bracing and the vacuum bells, this creates a synergistic effect together with proper training.
Examples of treated cases (vacuum bell)
Because I wasn’t able to find a documentation of Eckart Klobe‘s progression, I’ve had to dig deep on the internet, to find people who had success with vacuum bells.
Well, it wasn’t easy. Believe it or not, there aren’t many people who fully fixed their chest with using vacuum bells only, the only fully documented case can be found on Reddit.
His nickname is Strongclock, you can find him on Reddit.
First, let’s see some pictures.
This was his starting point, the depth of his excavatum is around 34mm.
It’s a (slightly) asymmetrical (to the left side) Pectus Excavatum.
Here, you can see the chart of his measurements.
The numbers mean the depth of the indent on his chest.
He started a regimen which relied on vacuum bell use and a lot of training, stretching, breathing exercises. Your can see that over the months, his condition begun to improve drastically.
The 10mm state was around 5-6 months from start.
But also, you can see that his ribflare changed little to none.
He didn’t stop, continued his hard regimen, you can clearly see how much muscle mass he gained in this relatively short period of time – this takes a lot of training!
He reached the 3mm depth around at 12 months since the start.
If you look closely at the last picture, you can see that he still has a quite noticable rib flare, altough he worked on it, so it’s less noticable than before.
Without targeting the rib flare specificly, it’s not going to go away with only using a vacuum bell.
In my opinion, if he’d have stop everything at this point, his chest would’ve regress back to the original state, due to the large rib flare.
He is a smart guy, he realised that the “sternum” (actually the surrounding muscles) gets softer by the vacuum bell, so he started to take breaks (2 days) between uses.
“The double edged sword” as I referred to this previously.
This was a great idea, as he didn’t use braces so he didn’t have a constant force there, and he needed more time to let the chest to “plasticize”.
Fast forward a whole year, he made great improvements on the abdominal region, but the rib flare is still there, altough improved a lot (he is clearly flexing his abs, so it’s not that noticable in these pictures).
This guy did an incredible job, and it’s even more impressive that he only used a vacuum bell as a tool, and an awful lot of training, but he truly overcome his excavatum, not just masked the condition with muscle mass.
He also overcame his bad posture, kyphotic spine, anterior pelvic tilt, and built up an impressive, balanced physique → these are necesarry if you want a permanent result!
It’s also clear, that the vacuum bell aren’t going to help the rib flare, and even a guy like him, with proper training, programming and work ethic of maniac had a hard time to overcome rib flare, so his journey strenghtened in me that how important bracing is.
Strongclock‘s journey is the only one which is fully treated by only using vacuum bell.
The other what I’ve found is partly-treated, still in progress.
There is another guy, who made a very detailed progression, his name is 999Giles you can find him on Reddit.
Here’s his post.
First, let’s see some pictures.
In these pictures you can see his chest before he started the vacuum bell treatment. As you can see, he had is a little boy, so he probably born with it. There is a slight asymmetricity towards the left side.
We don’t know his starting measurement, because he started to use vacuum bell in Januarty 2019, and he started the measurement diary in March 2019, but you can see that between January and March he did progress, a lot.
Here, you can see his detailed chart of measurements, and the measurements. Some of them has comments, it’s worth to look into it.
He tracked both the depth of his excavatio in the morning, and after the vacuum bell use. For analyzing his progression, first I’m going to use his morning measurements, because this is what I call the “semi-permanent” measurements, the measurements after the vacuum bell are fully temporary, but they show a very interesting tendency.
At this stage, he was using the vacuum bell but we have no data, but you can clearly see that between January and March he improved a lot.
So, his depth in March 2019 was 21mm.
In May, his depth came up to 10mm!
In July and August his depth is ranging from 9 to 13mm, he wasn’t really consistent at this time.
By September and October his depth didn’t went above 10mm, it’s ranging from 8 -9mm. But at the end of October he stopped the measurements, but he still used the vacuum bell, altough not consistently.
Fast forward to April 2020 (5 months), he restarted, and his measurement was 7-8mm.
Sadly, this is the last picture we have of his progression, but he continued.
In June, it was around 6-7mm.
In August it was around 7 to 9mm. At this point he changed his methodology to have dayoffs every 4th day.
His measurements from August to December is ranging from 5 to 10mm.
At the end of December, he stopped to measure.
The post vacuum measurements are only a few milimeter apart from the morning measurements in the beginning of his journey, but as more and more time passed, his post vacuum measurements got better and better, but his morning measurements were all over the place, sometimes with 5-6mm differences at the same day.
He did progress, and he did a good job.
I can tell, that he wasn’t as consistent, we don’t know much about how he trained, and how consitent that was, but if we take into account that he did this diary, then he wasn’t careless about his progression, that’s for sure.
After the initial progression, he stalled big time, and then it was a roller coaster from there. At both spring and summer time he was very active – probably this is the time when we have to wear the least amount of clothing – and by the winters, he stopped caring about it. This is a problem, because if you want to enjoy summer without a deformity, you need to be just as active in the winter time if not more.
Other than that, the too soft “sternum” (the surrounding muscles), the lack of postural strenght, and muscularity was his real problem. He clearly progressed with his posture, but not as much as he should’ve. This again shows, that vacuum bells alone won’t fix your deformity, at least not fully.
If you look at the pictures, you’d say, that he has little to no deformity at this point.
Well, it’s not entirely the case. He is a smart guy, and he realised that posture, different angles, and flexing, or tucking in the stomach can result so different pictures, that it almost seems like it’s not even the same peson (but it is).
Well, if you look at the last row, the diffrence is remarkable.
The first, neutral state, from the front shows a mild deformity.
The second, side angle now shows a moderate deformity, where the ribflare really stands out.
The third, flex mode shows a minor difference between the left and right pec, but even i wouldn’t assume that there is a chest deformity.
The fourth, tummy tuck shows how bad his ribflare actually is, and shows a mild deformity.
This, ladies and gentlemen is how you can not just manipulate pictures, but you can manipulate your own chest, with a big breath and flexing your muscles.
Conclusion:
What I’ve said previously about Strongclock’s progression can be applied here too, that vacuum bells aren’t going to fix the ribflare, and in order to say goodbye to the excavatum for good, you need to fix the rib flare too.
Secondly, as you can see his muscularty barely changed, and this is huge missed opportunity by him, because that would’ve help him tremendously.
Maybe in the course of this two years he could’ve fix himself just as Strongclock, but I have to highlight that Strongclock is a genetic freak, he made a physique in 2 years what most people don’t have with 5 years of consistent training.
Thirdly, consistency is the key. Everyone has bad days, but you need to prioritize, and you need a strong vision of what do you want. Even if you are lazy, you get up and use the bell (and braces), you do the strenghtening, stretching and breathing excersises, otherwise you start to derail, and you may never reach your goal.
Fourth, programming. So when you don’t have a strict program, then the chance that you won’t be consistent is significantly higher. When you aren’t consistent, you won’t reach your goal. A good programming is also key to success. A strong foundation, where you can start the construction.
Finally, supervision and check-ups. When you have someone to look after you is like a life-belt which saves you from a tragedy. And the tragedy in this case, is that you aren’t reaching a healthy chest.
Flaws and missing elements in Eckart Klobe's vacuum bell method
I want to make clear, that in this section I’m criticizing Eckart Klobe and other “manufacturers” who sell the same or similar looking, silicone, mass produced vacuum bells.
1. The main problem with vacuum bells, that the patients use it only for a few hours every day (usually 4 hours) and most of the time they don’t do any training whatsoever.
If you remember, Dr Sydney Haje’s braces were prescribed for 23 hours a day.
It’s simple mathematics, if you use something for 23 hours a day, versus you use something else for let’s say 4 hours a day, then:
– weekly; Brace: 161 hours vs. Vacuum bell: 28 hours
– 4 weekly; Brace 644 hours vs. Vacuum bell: 112 hours
– yearly; Brace: 8372 hours vs. Vacuum bell: 1456 hours
It’s clearly visible, that with the braces, you almost have 6 times more wearing time, so it’s no wonder that patients with braces have a much higher success rate!
2. The secondary problem, is the material itself. You may think, isn’t it awesome, to have a soft, malleable bell, which can be applied to almost any chest?
Well, it’s good for the manufacturer, bad for the patient.
It’s super rare, that these mass produced bells going to fit on your sunken part precisely. You may think it’s not a big deal, that it expands, and covers a bigger area than your sunken part – but it actually is.
Those parts of your chest, which doesn’t affected by the deformity shouldn’t be “corrected” (for example by vacuum) because that part needs no correction. It’s wasted energy, and a bad practice → with this, you “train” your body to elevate parts of your chest which shouldn’t be elevated otherwise. So not just that you waste energy on that, but eventually you form your chest in such a way as it shouldn’t be and it is going to set you back to reach your goal.
On top of that, these bells are notorious for leaks, because they are too soft, and can’t hold a strong enough vacuum.
3. Concentrating way too much on the (sunken) sternum. This whole “method” is about to lift up the sternum, and that’s it. This is a huge problem, because if you only rely on this you will never achive the desired result.
Ribflare is totally overlooked by them, also posture, rounded shoulders, kyphotic thorax, lordosis and anterior pelvic tilt, lack of musculature, muscular imbalances (tigth and elongated), spinal deformities – so the roots of the problem – won’t be solved by simply using a vacuum bell.
4. Size and visibility. I don’t even have to say too much about this, as the bells are sold to only be used for a few hours (at home) and not to be worn in the public. But what if, it’d be invisible under clothing, and you could wear it all day?
5. No programming. Again, no programming, exercises and routines coming with the bells. You are on your own, and you need to do your own research if you actually want any result.
6. No supervision, check-ups. These manufacturers don’t care wether you actually become healthy, or not. For them, you are nothing else, just a customer.