How should you manage your breathing during strength training?
One of the most classic pieces of advice from your friend at the park or the typical gym bro is related to breathing, they usually tell you something like that if you control your breathing you will get everything you want and more, and that your PRs are going to increase considerably. Today we are going to see what is true in this, if it is a myth or if controlling your breathing really serves a purpose, what would be the correct way to do it and much more, let's get started. In which aspects can correct breathing help when performing an exercise? First of all, I think we have to define what function breathing can have when performing a strength exercise, and in this case we have two functions, both related to pressure, but in totally different terms. The first isto create intra-abdominal pressure to improve the stability of the trunk, and the second is to relieve blood pressure and avoid the problems caused by maintaining high pressure for continuous periods of time.We are going to explain these two functions with examples, so that it is better understood. Regarding the function of creating intra-abdominal pressure, we are referring tofilling the lungs, trying to inflate not only the rib cage area, but also the abdominal area. This is usually known as diaphragmatic breathing and consists of trying to fill the lungs while expanding the abdominal area using the diaphragm, giving the appearance that they are filling from the bottom up, and without having that sensation of inflating only the upper part of the chest.