Date: Wed, 3 Dec 1997 23:54:06 -0600 From: Lyle McDonald Subject: Breathing >Now I notice that a lot of lifters seem to do the same while squatting or >benching heavy. There's no question that we should be "exhaling on the push," >but the question that I would like to put to those of you with more >experience is this: > >Does proper form dictate exhaling through the entire lift or would more >oxygen be available to the system by keeping it in the lungs (not exhaling)? The common dogma is to exhale through the entire concentric portion of the lift. This is especially common in fitness facilities dealing with high risk clients. A valsalva maneuver (exhaling against a closed glottis) can jack blood pressure to sky high levels (I seem to recall 400/300 but please correct the numbers if I recall wrong) for a short period of time. For someone with a pre-existing cardiac condition, this is dangerous. For an otherwise healthy lifter, I don't think it's a big problem. A partial valsalva (hodling breath until you clear the sticking point) will flat out make you stronger. Probably by helping to maintain Intra-abdominal pressure to stablize the spine/torso. this is what I recommend to advanced lifters (the few I have had the pleasure of working with). Invariably their squat improves as they are stronger out of the hole. As to oxygen insufficiency, it's really not an issue during weight training. There's generally more than enough oxygen present in the bloodstream (especially for an anaerobic event like lifting). The problem is extracting it from the tissue, an event made harder by the fact that capillaries close off at around 30% of 1RM. The solution is to pause between reps in a non-contracted position (top of squat/bench, bottom of DL) to allow capillaries to open and oxygen in/waste products out. Lyle McDonald, CSCS Date: Wed, 3 Dec 1997 21:51:22 -0800 From: Trupiano Subject: Re: Everyday the same thing! Breathe...Breathe...Breathe... I've always heard you inhale during the negative phase and exhale throughout the entire positive phase. In practice I think this works best for me when doing reps of 6 or more. The closer I get to a max weight the more I feel I have to hold my breath to maintain the trunk of my body rigid. I hope the experts here give some good answers. I think it'll be interesting. Mike Date: Wed, 3 Dec 1997 23:28:12 -0800 From: Deepsquatter Subject: Re: Everyday the same thing! Breathe...Breathe...Breathe... I generally hold it until I start to come out of the hole and am about 1/3-1/2 of the way up. -- Jason W. Burnell - email me for info on the STRENGTH list Date: Thu, 4 Dec 1997 08:58:47 -0500 From: Lorne Goldenberg Subject:Breathing The purpose of holding your breath is to build up some intra-abdominal pressure. This pressure assists in supporting the spine, as well as decompression. If you do not hold your breath in the first 3/4 of a maximal lift, your spine will not be able to handle the load. Go ahead and try it next time you are squatting with heavy doubles or triples. Try holding your breath for the the first 3/4 of the concentric lift, and then on another lift begin to exhale as you initiate the push into the floor. You will be able to handle a much higher load when you hold your breath and blow it out at the end of the rep. You will also find you will have a sore spine if you squat heavy with an improper breathing pattern. Lorne Goldenberg www.strengthtek.com Date: Thu, 4 Dec 1997 14:54:54 -0600 From: tim eichinger Subject: breath as a bencher i expand my chest and let out as little air as possible to keep tight and my chest high, the same with the squat. it keeps you tighter and prevents you from rolling forward with the bar. it raises your blood pressure - sometimes even causes you to pass out. not advised by alot of personal trainers who i am sure will give you all kinds of scientific reasons why it is bad and that holding a beach ball in your crotch with chains wrapped around it and bending your hips first not knees and blah blah blah. just lift the damn weight. Date: Wed, 24 Dec 1997 15:54:30 -0500 From: Paul Chek Subject: BENCHING and BREATHING Message text written by Michael H. Maylen: >Whenever I work out, especially doing the Bench press, I have people yelling "don't forget to breath", but WHEN and WHY? It doesn't seem to make any difference when or how I breath, and I find it better if I hold my breath until about half way up and THEN exhale. Is this a case of just repeating things by people that really don't know what they are talking about? Michael, Inhalation is mechanically and neurologically coupled with elevation of the arms, pressing movements and pulling movements of the upper extremities, therefore, inhalation can facilitate these movements. If you are lifting or pressing, pushing, or pulling a load large enough to cause you to stop breathing naturally, this indicates that your brain has decided that you need more stabilization than you can achieve with an active respiratory mechanism. The primary reason you find yourself stoping your respiration is that on inhalation, the diaphragm contracts and stabilizes the lumbar spine and torso, predominantly in the transverse plane (If you were cut in half top to bottom = transverse plane) to create a working foundation for the functioning extremity(ies). For example, in sprinters, there is usually no breath taken for the first 15 meters, while the body must stabilize for the maximal force of acceleration provided by the drive of the legs and explosive swing of the arms. If this stabilization does not happen, the core is soft and power is not optimally directed, resulting in dissipation of energy and loss of performance. When performing a high intensity bench press, it is important to release the air through slightly pursed lips just as you pass through the sticking point. This pursing action will maintaining intra-thoracic pressure, aiding in stabilization under heavy load, as well as decreasing the pressure enough to allow the heart to keep pumping; not allowing a full Valsalva Manoeuver, which is suspected to cause hypertrophy of the heart. I hope this clarifies your concern regarding breathing while benching. Paul Chek MSS, HHP, NMT Founder Corrective High-performance Exercise Kinesiology certification Paul Chek Seminars www.paulchekseminars.com 565 Pearl Street, Suite 108 La Jolla, CA 92037, USA Ph: (619) 551-8789 Fax: (619) 551-0587 Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 23:20:11 EST From: Mcsiff@aol.com Subject: Strength_List: BLOOD VESSELS & LIFTING Ond 3/17/99 , Jeff Deigan wrote: <> ***Quite simply blood vessels rupture or herniate if they are subjected to a pressure increase beyond what they can safely manage. This may be a result of blood vessels whose integrity may have been compromised by AA steroid abuse or by other factors (or by circulatory disease or genetics), by excessive increase in blood pressure caused by pronounced breath holding or a combination of both. Even if the blood vessels do not rupture, large increases in pressure of fluids within the brain can produce headaches which may or may not be a warning of serious vessel damage or stroke in the future. The only way of knowing more definitely if cerebral circulatory or tissue damage is being caused is to have an MRI scan at high cost. Rather than going to the expense of doing that, let us examine possible causes, such as excessive use of steroids or inappropriate breath control. The answer to the first possible cause is obvious, so I will comment on the latter. When you exert any significant force, the body responds reflexively to invoke the Valsalva manoeuvre (forced breath holding against a closed glottis) and increase your intrathoracic and intraabdominal pressures. This increase in gaseous pressure produces an accompanying increase in blood pressure, an effect which is particularly evident in the spinal column, vessels of the head and brain, even if there are some mechanisms which attempt to limit the extent of the tress increase. If this results in small capillary ruptures of vessels in the nose, face and eyes, and nothing more, then one probably has little to worry about, but the continued provocation of such events may increase the risks of rupture of more vital vessels in the brain or around the heart. If vessel rupture or haemorrhage occurs in the brain, this is known as a stroke and the consequences for this vary from partial paralysis and brain damage to death. If the increase in pressure to arteries supplying blood to the heart is imposed on arteries (by increase in intrathoracic pressure) which are already unhealthy or partially clogged with plaque, then you could damage or rupture these vessels (e.g. causing an aneurysm or distension of the aorta). Right, now that we are suitably terrified (and so we should be if one does have significant cardiocirculatory risk factors), what can we do about the situation? First of all, it would be productive to accept that, if excessive rise in blood pressure is the major problem, then you have to do something about the way in which you control your breathing during lifting. Now, we know that the frequently advised method of never holding one's breath in training is impractical nonsense for someone who wishes to stabilise the spine while lifting heavy loads. That well-meaning advice to suppress natural protective reflex creates potential risks for one's back. So, where to from here? What you can do is draw on Russian research (see Vorobyev "Textbook on Weightlifting" 1978) which showed that the optimal support for the spine with fewest side-effects is achieved with the lungs about 75% full. So, try not to overfull the lungs with forced inhalation and try to use a belt which is not excessively restrictive. By experimenting carefully with how 'full' your abdomen feels or how much your diaphragm seems to be depressed, relative to increasingly heavier loads, you will soon find a degree of 'fullness' which seems to suit you best. The wearing of even a fairly loose belt (you can fit one finger tightly between it and your abs) can serve as a very useful proprioceptive learning tool to achieve this posture. While lifting submaximal loads you may try 'humming' out through the nose little well-controlled whiffs of air to lower your intra-abdominal and intrathoracic pressure to a level which is sufficient to stabilise you well, but not too so high that you burst blood vessels. Moreover, since part of the blood vessel rupturing is due, not only to the rise in blood pressure, but also the duration of the pressure rise, you can help to minimise the problem by trying to complete your lifts as quickly as possible while maintaining good form. Interestingly, some other Russian research (Siff & Verkhoshansky "Supertraining" 1998) shows that breath holding and blood pressure increase is more prolonged among lifters whose technique is inefficient and accompanied by ill-managed efforts at stabilisation. In other words, make sure that your technique is so good that you can complete any maximal lifts as quickly as possible. As a recovering cardiac patient who had quadruple bypass surgery, I have found that the above 'tricks' can help enormously in reducing the potential risks associated with excessive or prolonged increases in blood pressure. If they can work in such a case, they certainly can be of value under less critical circumstances. Happy breathing! Dr Mel C Siff Denver, USA mcsiff@aol.com