EUGENIZATION.

Why breathe when weight training? I mean, why not just hold your breath for the entire set and pass out at the en….oh. Guess I answered my own question.

Ask a fitness professional why you breathe during a set, and you’ll get a number of great reasons, like:

• Your blood pressure will rise sky-high.
• You’ll sustain an Exercise-Induced Headache.
• You’ll burst a blood vessel.

…all of which are proper, valid explanations. Easily understood reasons.

And yet, when the rubber meets the road, your instinct is to hold your breath, especially when things get tough. Why is that? Why would you want to rocket your blood pressure sky high?

Well, of course, you don’t. And that’s not what Valsalva’s all about anyway.

What’s Valsalva?

Scientists, doctors, and highfalutin’ snobs like myself refer to the phenomenon of holding one’s breath and exerting as the Valsalva manuver. When holding your breath to complete a rep, you are performing a Valsalva manuver (most people perform a Valsalva daily when sitting on the throne, especially if they aren’t drinking enough water or eating fruits and veggies).

Valsalva is all about protection.

When you hold your breath and tense, you create an air pressure “ball” inside your abdominal cavity. This pressure ball serves to stabilize your spine by acting as a support beam (more like a pillar) for your spine, minimizing anterior stress when you’re trying to lift something.

Valsalva is a natural, preprogrammed instinct. It’s actually good, when you think about it - after all, if Neolithic man (or modern day Cindy Morrison) is trying to lift a humongous boulder, a little extra spine support could come in handy.

The problem arises when you sustain Valsalva for a long period of time.

That same protective pressure ball presses firmly on the large vein (the inferior vena cava) that returns blood from your legs back to your heart, cutting off bloodflow. This has two huge implications:

1. Since your circulatory system is a closed system, blood pressure dangerously rises, especially in the arteries.
2. Your heart gets minimal blood return and pumps harder and faster in a futile attempt to keep your muscles oxygenated.

If this continues, expecially under conditions of lifting heavy things, it’s no wonder athletes and amateurs alike burst blood vessels, turn beet red, and (in extreme cases) pass out and/or die (although to be fair, the majority of deaths occurred because the lifter wasn’t using the rack or a spotter, passed out during a lift, and crushed his ribcage and heart with the weight he was trying to lift). It’s clear that Valsava just wasn’t meant to be employed for a long time (more than a few seconds).

What does this mean to you? Breathe freely. Don’t hold your breath at all during a set. Powerlifters hold their breaths all the time you say? Yes - and their max attempts last no longer than a few seconds (and even then, Andy Bolton exploded blood vessels in his nose during his record-setting squat).

Breathing freely during a set will minimize impact on blood pressure, keep you focused, and prevent headaches. And, you won’t get blotchy eye, like this guy:

Above: One good reason to breathe when weight training is to avoid a subconjunctival hemorrhage (i.e., burst a blood vessel in your eye).