Squatting and breathing

cattyw

Hi. I just wondered how everyone "trains" themselves to breath when squatting. I take a breath, squat, then release when almost stood back up. I really struggling with feeling out of breath and holding my breath whilst I squat...I feel like it holds me back when it comes to continuing my reps. Would be interested to hear anyone's thoughts on this. Thanks

ElizabethKalmbach

The Strong Lifts 5x5 manual has a fair bit of advice about breathing with squats. They advise you to hold your breath during the squat and breathe at the top/in between so that you can maintain space in your abdominal cavity under load, or somesuch. I find it works for me.

You can read more than my crappy summary here, though it might be worthwhile to read the entire program through if you find you're learning a lot from the advice given.

https://stronglifts.com/5x5/#Breathing

cupcakesandproteinshakes

I breathe in at the start of the rep and start breathing out on the way up.(when I am coming out of the hole) When I first started doing barbell back squats I used to hold my breath until I got to the top and that resulted in me seeing stars a few times until I realised what I was doing.

lgfrie

cupcakesandproteinshakes wrote: »

I breathe in at the start of the rep and start breathing out on the way up.(when I am coming out of the hole) When I first started doing barbell back squats I used to hold my breath until I got to the top and that resulted in me seeing stars a few times until I realised what I was doing.

This is helpful. I've been struggling with squat breathing and also had the "seeing stars" thing upon standing, which was worrisome.

Cahgetsfit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=macSAeINwi4 about squating and bracing included.