lifting weights and breathing.

tom_tarbucket

I've started weights again after about a year off. I've been doing weights on and off for about 10 years.

I'm doing the 5 x 5 strong lifts thing.

One thing I'm focusing on now is the breathing, in the past I never really concentrated much on breathing.

I started reading about it and tried a different breathing technique yesterday as follows.

This was on a bench press.

1. lie back on bench, take a big breath and hold it
2. lift weight off rack ( breath still held )
3. bring weight down ( breath still held )
4. just AFTER starting push up, release breath slowly
5. at top of push up, hold breath again and repeat for each rep.



However after doing this technique yesterday morning, I had a headache all day and it was quiet acute last night

thankfully the headache is gone now.
now I dunno if the headache was 1. just a coincidence, 2. because I'm not used to this breathing technique or 3. because the breathing technique I did was wrong.


can anyone recommend a proper breathing technique or advice here ? without getting over technical

Alf Veedersane

Have a goo at this:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-G_ot0-98NU

tom_tarbucket

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

Have a goo at this:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-G_ot0-98NU

Thanks for that Alf. Them lads are getting very technical about it though.

Would the way I was doing things yesterday cause me to have a headache.

Is there any 5 simple steps I could do different from the way I did it yesterday ?

Alf Veedersane

It's not overly technical. It's basically telling you how to breathe in properly. What you did reads fine on paper.

How you breathe might be the issue.

But the headache might be completely unrelated and you've nothing to concern yourself with.

tom_tarbucket

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

It's not overly technical. It's basically telling you how to breathe in properly. What you did reads fine on paper.

How you breathe might be the issue.

But the headache might be completely unrelated and you've nothing to concern yourself with.

I was reading afterwards that the way I did things in my opening post could cause fainting and it's just too much pressure due to holding the breath for too long with heavy loads etc.

Alf Veedersane

tom_tarbucket wrote: »

I was reading afterwards that the way I did things in my opening post could cause fainting and it's just too much pressure due to holding the breath for too long with heavy loads etc.

Depends how long your reps were but that would more likely be an issue for a movement like squat.

But the breathing you describe in the OP would be fairly typical.

tom_tarbucket

Could another way of doing it, that's less dangerous for blood pressure be :


For a bench press again

1. lie back on bench,.
2. lift weight off rack.
3. bring weight down. ( during the entire down movement, take your breath in slowly )
4. At very bottom, hold your breath for a split second.
5. just AFTER starting push up, release breath slowly
6. at top of push up, repeat and take breath in as lowering weight.

Alf Veedersane

tom_tarbucket wrote: »

Could another way of doing it, that's less dangerous for blood pressure be :


For a bench press again

1. lie back on bench,.
2. lift weight off rack.
3. bring weight down. ( during the entire down movement, take your breath in slowly )
4. At very bottom, hold your breath for a split second.
5. just AFTER starting push up, release breath slowly
6. at top of push up, repeat and take breath in as lowering weight.

Give it a try. You'd probably want to get the full inhalation in by the time the bar is halfway down for stability.

The headache may have had abolsutely nothing to do with it but see what works for you.