Why you should pay attention to your breathing during strength training

Proper breathing during strength training is essential. In aerobic activities like running or swimming, a good breathing pattern ensures that your working muscles are optimally supplied with the oxygen they partly need for energy production. But breathing plays a significant role in strength training too.

There's so much to think about when you lift weights. You need to control the speed of the weight so you don't rely on momentum. With so much focus on the weight and the movement itself, it's easy for "small things" like proper breathing to get forgotten. It might sound obvious, but the most important thing is to make sure you're breathing and not holding your breath. Holding your breath during strength training can potentially be dangerous, especially if you're just starting out with strength training, or if you have high blood pressure or heart disease.

What happens if you forget to breathe during strength training?

Some people get so caught up in lifting the weight that they forget to breathe during strength training. Without realising it, they take an extremely deep breath in and then hold it. Holding your breath during strength training is known as breath-holding, or the Valsalva manoeuvre. This might not sound like a serious problem, but it is. When you lift a heavy weight while holding your breath, the pressure in your abdominal cavity increases. In the worst case, this puts pressure on the veins running through your chest, causing them to collapse.

Why is it a problem if you don't pay attention to your breathing?

Holding your breath during strength training reduces the blood flow back to your heart. Because less blood reaches your heart, your stroke volume drops - that's the amount of blood your heart pumps out with each beat. This leads to a drop in blood pressure and reduced blood flow to the brain. In this case, the result may be dizziness, light-headedness, or even fainting.
A study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that people who held their breath during exercise had an average blood pressure of 320/250 mmHg.

As soon as you start breathing again, it's like releasing a stretched elastic band. Your blood pressure shoots up quickly to a level higher than it should be. If you have high blood pressure or undiagnosed heart problems, this sudden spike in blood pressure can be dangerous. It can even affect your eyesight. If you forget to breathe during strength training, the pressure in the blood vessels behind your eyes suddenly rises. If severe enough, capillaries can burst and cause retinal haemorrhages.

Normally, breathing during strength training happens automatically

Your brain's respiratory centre automatically sends signals to your breathing muscles, telling them when to breathe. This happens automatically. Normally, you don't need to consciously think about breathing during strength training. During exercise, your brain detects a rise in carbon dioxide and lactate - a metabolic by-product - in your blood, and instructs your breathing muscles to increase the speed and depth of breathing accordingly. This way, correct breathing during strength training can release extra carbon dioxide and supply your working muscles with the oxygen they need.

The main thing is not to forget to breathe during strength training

Most fitness trainers recommend breathing out during the concentric phase of the lift, when the muscle contracts or when you lift the weight against gravity, and breathing in as you lower it - the eccentric phase.
That's good advice - but the most important thing is that you breathe at all. This is another reason why it's important to concentrate on lifting the weight, rather than thinking about everyday problems or anything like that.
First of all, letting your mind wander won't do much for your training anyway, and on top of that, you risk injury if you lose focus. Focus on breathing evenly throughout every lifting phase. If a weight is so heavy that you have to hold your breath to lift it, choose a lighter one.

One group you definitely don't want to copy is the so-called powerlifters. Some strength athletes deliberately stop breathing during strength training when lifting a heavy weight. This increases the pressure in their abdominal cavity, giving their spine better support during the lift. Even experienced powerlifters sometimes suffer "complications", such as the retinal haemorrhages described above. Don't try this yourself.

Conclusion: Breathing during strength training is essential

There's a lot to think about when you lift weights, but proper breathing must never be ignored. The old advice to breathe out when lifting and breathe in when lowering is less important than simply remembering not to hold your breath. So don't let your mind wander. Focus on your training, on your breathing, and on good technique. It's safer if you concentrate on your breathing during strength training.

Have fun with it.