中府 Zhongfu
“Central Treasury” · LU1
Hand Taiyin · 1 of 11 · front-mu of the lung, crossing-point
Where. On the front of the shoulder: find the hollow under the outer end of the collarbone, then go one thumb-width lower.
For. Cough, wheezing, a full, tight chest.
Press. Gentle pressure, about a minute each side, breathing slowly.
中府，肺之募也，一名膺中俞，在雲門下一寸，乳上三肋間陷者中按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Zhongfu Sits on the Upper Chest
On the upper outer aspect of the chest, Zhongfu occupies the gentle slope below the outer stretch of the collarbone. The dataset places it one cun below Yunmen (LU2), level with the first intercostal space, six cun lateral to the anterior midline. A cun is the traditional measuring unit of Chinese point-location: proportional lengths taken from the person being examined rather than from a ruler, so a cun at the shoulder of a broad-framed adult differs from a cun on a slight teenager. For most bodies, six cun from the midline works out to roughly two-thirds of the way from the breastbone line toward the side of the torso — comfortably on the front slope where chest becomes shoulder, not tucked deep toward the armpit.
What lies under the fingertips here deserves respect. The area belongs to the upper outer part of the pectoralis major, and beneath the muscle lie ribs separated by soft intercostal spaces. Level with the first intercostal space means level with the first gap between ribs below the clavicle — high on the chest wall, in the territory where lung tissue rides highest during inhalation. This is why classical location texts are unusually precise about this point, and why any pressure practiced here should stay superficial and unhurried. Nothing about self-palpation needs force; the landmarks announce themselves to patient, light touch.
Zhongfu and its neighbor Yunmen form a vertical pair. Yunmen rests in the soft depression directly beneath the lateral end of the clavicle, in the corridor between the collarbone and the shoulder prominence; Zhongfu sits about a thumb-width lower, at rib-gap level. Locating the pair together confirms the placement: if your finger rests in the hollow under the bone you have found Yunmen, and one cun straight down brings you to Zhongfu. Losing track mid-search simply means returning to the collarbone and starting again.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit upright on a firm chair with both feet down and shoulders released, so the chest muscles soften. Rest your right hand on your left shoulder and walk your index and middle fingers outward along the top edge of the left collarbone until you reach its outer end, where the bone turns downward. Slide just below that end into the soft hollow you find there — that hollow marks Yunmen. Now drop your fingertips about one thumb-width straight down the chest wall until they settle into a shallow groove between two ribs: this first gap below the clavicle is the first intercostal space, and level with it lies Zhongfu. Repeat the search with hands swapped so the other side receives the same careful attention.
A few confirmations help before any pressing begins. Touch feather-light and compare sides: most people notice a faint, dull awareness at the true point and little sensation a finger-width away. Let a slow breath move under your fingertips — the groove widens slightly as the ribs lift. Check the horizontal distance too: the spot should sit well clear of the breastbone, out where the chest rounds toward the shoulder, consistent with the recorded six cun from the midline. If what you feel instead is bare bone, slide down half a thumb-width off the rib edge and search for the groove again.
The classic mistake is dropping too far and landing in the second or third intercostal space, which sit progressively lower and farther from the collarbone. Counting prevents it: the very first groove the fingertip meets below the clavicle is the one you want. Another common slip is drifting outward toward the armpit; Zhongfu stays on the front-facing slope of the chest. When in doubt, find the collarbone hollow once more and measure down a single time, slowly.
Reading the Name: Central Treasury
The characters tell the story in miniature. Zhong 中 means central or middle — the character even pictures a marker set through the middle of a field. Fu 府 carries the sense of a storehouse or treasury, and by extension the residence where something valuable is kept and managed. Together, Zhongfu reads as the central treasury: the place where the wealth of the lung system gathers and is safeguarded. Classical teaching assigns each of the organs such a gathering place on the front of the trunk, called a mu point, and Zhongfu holds that office for the lungs themselves.
That treasury role explains why classical practice reached for this point when breath complaints dominated. In the traditional frame the lung governs qi and respiration, and the mu point is where that organ’s activity pools closest to the surface at the front of the body. The category records add a second layer: Zhongfu is also noted as a crossing-point, and the classical descriptions say the qi of the spleen channel joins the lung channel here. Spleen and lung connect in five-phase thinking as earth generating metal, so the meeting reads as nourishment flowing upward to support breath.
Pinyin renders the name Zhōngfǔ, with a flat first tone on zhong and a dipping third tone on fu. The hanzi pair 中府 is short enough to memorise at a glance, and like many channel points named for architecture — gates, valleys, courtyards, storehouses — the metaphor does real work. It says the tradition treats this spot as a hub where things collect, not a way-station things merely pass through. The name is itself a small set of instructions.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: cough, asthma, chest fullness and pain, and shoulder and back pain. Framed as tradition rather than promise, classical practice traditionally used Zhongfu for coughs of many kinds and for wheezing, labored breathing — the old records grouped under asthma what modern readers would recognise as a range of noisy, effortful breathing patterns. Chest fullness is a distinct traditional concept: a subjective weight, oppression, or stuck quality across the chest, understood as qi failing to move freely there. The chest pain in the same records usually refers to dull, blocked sensations described alongside fullness, not to sudden severe pain, which has always belonged to urgent medical care.
The last indication, shoulder and back pain, looks surprising until the channel map is consulted. The lung channel begins high on the chest in this region, and classical texts describe it crossing the lateral chest toward the shoulder before descending the arm. Discomfort along that course — stiffness where shoulder meets chest, ache tracking across the upper back — was therefore approached at points along the route, and as the channel’s opening point and the lung’s mu point, Zhongfu stood at the head of such discussions in the classical literature.
It bears repeating plainly: these are the traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, offered here for cultural and historical understanding. They are not claims that pressing this point treats disease, and nothing in this guide replaces assessment by a qualified clinician. Where modern research touches self-applied pressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and context-dependent, and evidence specific to any single point remains thin. Hold the tradition lightly, and hold the safety rules firmly.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point located by the walkthrough above, settle into position: seated, spine tall but unforced, shoulders heavy. Curl your index and middle fingers together and rest the pads — not the tips — on the spot. Begin with contact alone for a few breaths, then add small, slow circles, letting the skin glide over the tissue beneath rather than grinding against the ribs. Pressure should register as pleasant dullness or mild warmth, never sharpness. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, matched where possible to slow exhales so each circle rides the breath out. Swap hands and repeat on the other side, keeping the two sessions symmetrical.
Quality matters more than duration. Light, patient, regularly repeated contact fits the wellness register this page practises; hard jabbing causes harm and teaches the body nothing. If your hands are cold, warm them first, because chilled muscle guards. Choose a quiet corner over a screen, since the practice doubles as a breathing pause: inhale through the nose, feel the chest expand under still fingers, press gently on the long exhale. People who keep a routine often anchor it to an existing habit — morning washing, an afternoon stretch — because consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually ask for.
Treat the exercise as a small ceremony of attention rather than a treatment session. Notice what changes across weeks: perhaps the area feels less guarded, perhaps breathing feels smoother while you press, perhaps nothing shifts except that you spend ninety seconds attending to your own chest. Every one of those outcomes fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — pressing harder, longer, or deeper to force a result. When curiosity pulls that way, return to gentleness or simply stop for the day.
Cautions and Safe Practice
This point earns more respect than most, and the reason is written in the licensed record. The dataset cautions practitioners not to needle Zhongfu deeply, because deep insertion at this site can injure the lung and cause a pneumothorax — a collapsed lung that is a medical emergency. The caution follows from plain geography: high on the chest wall at the first intercostal space, only muscle and thin membrane separate the skin from the pleural space and the lung. Professional training manages that risk with exact technique; home self-care manages it differently and far more simply — by never leaving the surface at all.
For fingertip acupressure the practical rules follow from that picture. Keep pressure light and strictly superficial — the intention stays in skin and superficial muscle, never driving inward between the ribs. Use finger pads, never elbows, knuckles, or tools, and never press while holding the breath or through pain. Skip the point entirely during any acute breathing difficulty, during a feverish illness, and over broken or irritated skin; be cautious after recent chest injury or surgery until a clinician clears ordinary activity. Sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stop at once and do not try again that day. Pregnant readers, and anyone living with lung or heart conditions, should consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice.
And the wider rule stands over everything: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical care — not a pressure routine — for breathlessness at rest or on mild exertion, chest pain, coughing blood, a cough lasting beyond a few weeks, wheeze that will not settle, or any symptom that frightens you. Persistent symptoms belong with a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. The treasury imagery is lovely, but the safest gift Zhongfu offers most people is a better acquaintance with their own chest wall, treated kindly.
Zhongfu, the Central Treasury, opens the lung channel just below the outer end of the collarbone. Classical practice gathered lung qi here, reaching for this point when cough, tight breath, or chest fullness weighed on a person. This guide walks through finding it by touch and pressing it safely.
Cautions from the classical sources
- Keep insertion shallow; a deep needle can puncture the lung and cause pneumothorax.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Zhongfu without knowing anything about cun?
- Use the collarbone as the whole map. Follow the bone outward from the throat notch until it ends, drop into the soft hollow just beneath that outer end, then come down one thumb-width onto the first groove between ribs you meet. That groove-level spot, out where the chest slopes toward the shoulder, is the location the dataset describes. Cun measurements simply encode the same landmark sequence in proportional language.
- Is pressing Zhongfu myself actually safe?
- Gentle fingertip pressure held on the surface is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults, because it engages skin and superficial muscle far short of the structures behind the ribs. The recorded danger concerns deep professional techniques that reach toward the lung — a category home acupressure never approaches. Respect the stop signals: sharp pain, radiating sensation, or discomfort that worsens all mean finish immediately.
- What did classical practice use Zhongfu for?
- The traditional record lists cough, asthma-style wheezing breath, chest fullness and pain, and shoulder and back pain. Classical texts describe it as the front-mu point where lung qi gathers, which is why respiratory complaints dominate its historic portfolio. Those are traditional frameworks for understanding the body, documented for context — not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why does the lung channel begin up on the chest?
- Classical channel theory draws the lung pathway starting around the stomach region in the trunk, rising through the chest where it surfaces at Zhongfu, then traveling down the inner arm to end at the thumb. Beginning on the chest lets the channel pass its organ’s mu point immediately — the treasury door before the long walk down the limb. It also matches the anatomy: everything the lung channel does proximally happens in the territory this point overlooks.
- Can acupressure at Zhongfu replace seeing a doctor about my cough?
- No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not a diagnostic tool, and a cough carrying red flags — blood, fever, worsening breathlessness, duration beyond a few weeks — needs professional assessment promptly. Think of the two as different floors of the same building: daily self-care lives downstairs, and clinical medicine keeps the consulting room upstairs that you visit when symptoms persist or escalate. Neither substitutes for the other.
Sources
- 01WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region (2008), World Health Organization — nomenclature conventions.
- 02A Manual of Acupuncture, Peter Deadman, Mazin Al-Khafaji and Kevin Baker — point-name tradition, mu-point theory, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for LU1 Zhongfu — location, point class, actions, and caution record.
Last reviewed
牌記This leaf, for machines
Old books ended with a colophon saying who printed them. Every leaf here carries the same facts as structured data for agents and search, with no layout in the way.
- GET /en/points/lu1/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/lu1/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/lu1/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "LU1",
"name": {
"en": "Zhongfu",
"gloss": "Central Treasury",
"zh-Hant": "中府",
"zh-Hans": "中府"
},
"channel": {
"id": "LU",
"order": 1,
"of": 11
},
"location": {
"text": "On the front of the shoulder: find the hollow under the outer end of the collarbone, then go one thumb-width lower."
},
"for": [
"cough",
"wheezing",
"a full",
"tight chest"
],
"press": {
"text": "Gentle pressure, about a minute each side, breathing slowly.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/lu1",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}