Studying Breathing Techniques for Exercise

The exercise descriptions in this blog don’t include breathing instructions because too many extra instructions amounts to information overload. Nevertheless, proper breathing technique is important, so to spare you the overkill, we’re only going to say this once. You’ll thank us later. But don’t forget to breathe. Promise? Okay. Here are the general rules:

• Inhale deeply through your nose to bring in a fresh oxygen supply during the less difficult part of an exercise (such as when you lower the weight during a bench press). Inhaling provides the spark of energy for your next repetition.
• Exhale deeply through your mouth during the most difficult part of the exercise, also known as the exertion phase or the sticking point. During the bench, for example, pressing the bar up is the exertion phase, so exhale as the bar travels upward.

Exhaling protects your lower back by building up pressure that acts as a girdle to hold your spine in place. Exhaling also ensures that you don’t hold your breath so long that you pass out. Before the hard-core weight lifting contingency sends irate letters, note that these breathing directions are for non-maximal lifts. World-class powerlifting isn’t discussed here. If you plan to compete in powerlifting, you need to use a slightly different breathing technique than the one described above. Because we don’t think that many of you plan to enter such competition (at least not immediately), we won’t bore you with the details.

Maintain proper posture

Proper posture is an all-encompassing phrase that includes everything that we’ve mentioned in this section. This phrase is used often because good posture is so important — and because our posture often goes down the tubes when we focus on lifting and lowering a weight. Good posture isn’t automatic for most of us, so give yourself frequent reminders. And if you exercise with correct posture, you’ll train your muscles to hold themselves correctly in everyday life. Throughout these chapters, the Posture Patrol icon reminds you to maintain good posture.

Keep your shoulders and neck relaxed and tilt your chin

If your shoulders are hunched up near your ears, you need to relax. Hunched shoulders may be linked to holding the phone to your ear or sitting at your computer all day long, absorbing workday stress. If you’re prone to hunching, think about lengthening your shoulder blades, as if they’re dropping down your back, and try to keep them there as you perform the exercise. Strengthening your shoulder stabilizer muscles, such as the mid-upper back and external rotators, improves your ability to keep your shoulders down.

Tilt your chin just enough to fit your closed fist between your chest and your chin. This position lines up the vertebrae of your neck with the rest of your vertebrae. (Because your neck is a continuation of your spine, it should stay in the same general line as the rest of your vertebrae.) So don’t tilt your chin back or drop it toward your chest like you do when you sulk. These two movements strain your neck and place excess pressure on the top vertebrae of your spine.

Don’t lock your joints

The phrase “Don’t lock your joints” refers to your elbows and your knees. Locking a joint means straightening it so completely that it moves past the point where it normally sits at rest. For example, you don’t usually stand with your quadriceps (front thigh muscles) as tight as can be with your kneecaps pulled up; that’s a locked knee. Locking your knees isn’t only bad news for your knee joints, but it also causes lower back pain. It can even lead to more serious injuries. One of our friends actually knew someone who passed out when he was singing at a choir concert because he locked his knees — he fell right off the back of the riser. And locking the knees is a way of cheating when you perform exercises in a standing position, such as the lateral raise and the barbell biceps curl.
Locking your elbows places excessive pressure on your elbow joints, tendons, Constant elbow locking causes tennis elbow (an inflammation of the elbow tendons), even if you’ve never held a tennis racket in your hand. Locking your elbows also contributes to bursitis through the rupturing of the bursa (little lubrication capsules) located in your joints. Bursitis
results in swelling, pain, and tenderness at the elbow. Snapping your elbows also is a form of cheating because the weight is temporarily shifted off your muscle and on to the bone. When you snap your elbows, your muscles fail to get the proper workout.

SStand up tall with square shoulders and a lifted chest

Keep your head centered between your shoulders, and don’t round your shoulders forward. In other words, avoid slouching. Your chest should be comfortably lifted, not forced; you needn’t stand like a soldier at attention. Avoid arching your upper back and pushing your ribs forward.

Pull in your abdominals

Place your hand over your belly button and gently pull your belly button in and away from your hand; that’s what it feels like to pull in your abdominal muscles. Don’t try to create a vacuum or suck your stomach into your ribs as if someone was going to punch you. Just hold your abs slightly in toward your spine. Tightening your abs helps hold your torso still when you exercise and keeps your back from arching or rounding — mistakes that can lead to back injury.