To Breathe or Not to Breathe

By Richard C. Lansky, CSCS
Clinic Director - OPTI Sports & Fitness Clinic

Sounds like an ominous title for a conditioning tip, does it not?

However, there appears to be considerable confusion surrounding the use of the vasalva maneuver during heavy lifting efforts.

Many health and fitness organizations, books on the shelf and articles in magazines for the general public caution against the use of a vasalva maneuver during the lifting of heavy weights or other efforts involving high levels of physical exertion.

Let's start with a quick description of the vasalva maneuver during resistance training. Prior to performing a heavy squat, dead lift, pull, or press, the athlete takes a deep breath, inflating his or her chest and filling it with air while closing the glottis.

The athlete then performs the exercise, releasing the vasalva as they complete the most difficult portion of the exercise. The manuever is initiated again prior to beginning the next repetition.

Why?

Many point to the possible dangers involved in performing the vasalva manuever. They stress that there exists significant danger due to possible negative effects that could include the following:

• Temporary increases in arterial blood pressure
• Lack of oxygen to the brain - thus possibly causing dizziness
• Overall stress to the cardiopulmonary system

How about the benefits?

The positive effects of this action, in relation to lifting heavy loads are the following:

• Increase in intrathoracic pressure (ITP)
• Increase of intrabdominal pressure (IAP)

The increase in IAP and ITP contribute to the creation af a "gas/fluid ball" that serves as an internal brace for the trunk, "shoring up" the body's support columns of the lumbar and abdominal musculature.

This increased "bracing" helps the athlete to maintain an upright and protected trunk position during such high-intensity activities such as dead lifts, the pull portion of cleans and snatches, overhead pressing and jerking, bench presses, good mornings, rdls, loaded dips and chins, and especially squats, lunges and step-ups of all manner.

Since the low back is often the weak link in the chain for many athletes, this action helps to maintain a safe trunk position, keeping the loads in the proper position in relation to the hips and legs, or the shoulders respectively. This helps decrease the chance of injuring the weak link.

In addition, it allows the athlete to perform the exercise in better form and thus more efficiently, resulting in greater loads being able to be used for the purposes of strength, endurance and power development.

As a strength and conditioning professional and an Olympic-style Weightlifting Coach, I personally firmly believe in the use of the vasalva during heavy lifting efforts... both for performance enhancement and injury prevention.

That being said, I must stress that the proper use of this maneuver should be coached well and taught to each athlete on an individual basis to ensure safety.

If an athlete has difficulty grasping the concept or demonstrates improper use of the activity (i.e. holding a vasalva manuever for multiple consecutive reps in the bench press - without exhaling and repeating the new inspiration / vasalva), he or she would be barred from using the maneuver.

In addition, any athlete with a history of cardiovascular disease of any sort, hyper or hypotension in reference to arterial blood pressure, pulmonary limitations, family history of syncope, cvd, or if he or she had any injuries to the lumbar, thoracic, or scapular musculature, would be discouraged from using this manuever.

As with any conditioning tip, please check with your personal physician as to the suitability of utilizing this maneuver in your lifting efforts prior to actually doing so.

If you have further questions concerning this information, please feel free to contact us via e-mail at: rclopti@aol.com