Carl Stough

While working with terminally ill patients Stough realized the potential of his work for people with no respiratory faults. In 1967, he received a call from the U.S. Olympic Committee. The Olympic Games of 1968 were to be held in Mexico City, situated at high altitude. This posed a considerable problem as athletes prepared for the Olympics. Many of them had never performed at high altitude before, causing the committee to be concerned about oxygen insufficiency. After preliminary studies on the East Coast, Stough was approved by the medical board of the Olympic Committee to work as a breathing consultant for the U.S. Olympic track and field team at their training center in Lake Tahoe, California.

Stough founded the Carl Stough Institute of Breathing Coordination with his wife, Reece Stough in 1965. The Institute closed after Stough's death in October 2000.

From 1958 to 1968, he worked with singers of the Metropolitan Opera. Stough worked with choirs and singers of all ages and musical styles, connecting them to their optimal breathing. To him, the most important part of the breathing mechanism was the exhale, and prolonging it by strengthening the diaphragm.

As a breathing specialist, Stough worked in several hospitals from 1958 to 1962 assisting emphysema patients. The veterans' hospital in East Orange, New Jersey was the first. At the time, the respiratory muscles and the mechanics of breathing were called a "no man's land between anatomy and physiology." By comparing the breathing patterns of the patients with his infant daughter's, Stough realized that instead of calmly letting the air come into the lungs from the diaphragm, the patients were gasping for air using accessory muscles that are not efficient for breathing. He then sought to release tensions in those muscles and the whole rib cage by light manual pressure and gentle tapping. Soon, the first positive results could be observed, as the amount of oxygen needed to be given to the patients dropped after the sessions with Stough.

After graduating from Westminster Choir College, Stough was immediately hired to conduct the choir of First Presbyterian Church in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. The choir quickly became very successful, performing with the North Carolina Symphony and on radio. Stough stated that the reason for the critically acclaimed sound was weekly singing lessons that each singer of the choir had with him. In 1953, Stough returned to New York City to continue his own vocal studies and to work with other groups of singers. He was soon invited to reestablish the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd Choir School in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. By 1958, it was recognized for its excellence and became an institution firmly established in the musical life of New York City with its eight choirs ranging from age 3 to 93.

Carl Stough was a student of choral conducting at Westminster Choir College in New Jersey in the 1940s when he started to be fascinated with breathing. As a singer, he knew how important small and steady airflow was to the production of voice. He investigated the meaning of "breath support" that all singers are confronted with. He was trying to understand how to obtain optimal breath support for himself and the singers he was conducting in his choirs.

Carl Stough (1926–2000) was an American choral conductor and breathing specialist and the founder of the now closed Carl Stough Institute of Breathing Coordination, a non-profit organization for the research of optimal breathing.