 How should you breathe when you lift weights? Watch this. Our next caller is Susanna from Maine. Hi, Susanna. How can we help you? Hi. Uh, well, I have a question. Um, I always learned that the breathing rule is to exhale on the exertion. Yeah. Inhale, inhale as you're not exerting. And I recently had a personal trainer certification. The instructor said that's not always the rule. And, and when you're pulling something towards your torso, you want to inhale and then you would exhale the other way. And I got just blew my mind and I've tried it with lat pulldowns. It, it feels really weird, but he said it had to do with shoulder external rotation. Yeah, he's right. Do you know why? Okay. Yeah. So, you know, when you do a row, how you want to expand your chest and stick your chest out, pull your shoulders back. It's hard to do while you breathe out. So breathing in brings the rib cage out and it gives you more space to get that scapula retraction. Now here's a deal with breathing. Okay. People overthink it. Yes. That's like, this is like, like, like, look at, now you're like, yeah, like now you're like thinking about what you got to do, like naturally what we do when we exert ourselves is we either hold our breath or we grunt or we kind of like, right? So what's happening when we're breathing like that, we're breathing out, but we're doing it with a tense core, right? It's like, right? In martial art, martial artists or box boxers will talk about either a key eye or you hear boxers do that, you know, breathing type thing. They're breathing out with exertion while maintaining a tight core. The truth is the only time I ever had to tell somebody to, to change their breathing was the client that held their breath, that just held the breath the whole time. And then I'm like, oh, you got to start breathing, right? So it's over. I used to have this spiel with my clients because this is such a common question. And they'd ask me like, hey, I've heard this and I've heard that and what you're supposed to do. I say, okay, ready? Take notes. I'm going to tell you what you need to do. Breathe. Just fucking breathe. Like literally just breathe. Like there's, and the reason why I would say this to them is that, for example, there's going to be times when we're training over the course of this year, when I'm going to ask you to do a 10 second negative. What do you do? Breathe in for 10 seconds. You know, of course you're not, you're going to end up probably taking three or four breaths. And there's going to be other times when I want you to do something explosive, real like that. And you're not going to breathe in and out in one second. Or a max. You're going to hold your breath. Yes. So yeah, I think the only valuable thing to really focus on to be able to provide yourself with the type of like tensing core stability. So like so, you know, to take time in learning that and being able to maintain a nice tight core while you're still able to like inhale, get adequate amount of oxygen and breath work, but still be able to maintain that tightness. I mean, that's, that's really like the main thing, especially when you're loading a lot of weight in your back. No, that's a great point, Justin. And what he's explaining is your ability to draw your core in, right? And tighten up around that spine and brace while also I'm doing it right now, right? So I'm bracing my core, but I can still communicate, breathe and talk. That's a good, that's an important technique to be able to do that. And that's where I want my clients. I want you to be able to brace that core tight while also still be able to breathe and talk. That's way more important. Yeah. Susan, how long have you been a trainer for? Oh, I'm a barrel. I'm not, I'm not even, I'm not even. Okay. You just get started. I'm just getting started. Okay, good. So it seems like it's such an important topic. And as I was playing with it was like how I didn't feel braced as I was inhaling and pulling. Yeah. So that's, that's, I guess, an art form. It is. So, so look, this is, I'm glad you're a new trainer. So I'm going to tell you something. Okay. When you're working on a client and you're training them and they have to focus on their posture and the muscle control and where they feel something and technique and form, and then you're going to tell them to focus on breathing. That's an automatic thing. You're going to mess them up. This is a big mistake. A lot of new trainers do is they tell their client to focus on 50 different things. And the client's like, I don't know what to do. Grip the floor with your toes. Squeeze your glutes. Make sure you breathe right here. Look over there. Like, okay, this is, I even heard a trainer once tell a client, push your tongue to the roof of your mouth while you're doing this exercise is to activate some whatever muscle. And you could tell the client was just like, okay, I don't, like it's like trying to teach somebody how to throw a ball and you're telling 50 different things and like, yeah, don't worry about the breathing unless you notice like it's, it's an issue or not. Yeah. And then, and then when you do focus on breathing with them, just breathe with them. That's the only time I would work with a client on breathing is when we were practicing full diaphragmatic breathing. We weren't doing exercises. I had them on the back, on the floor, make your belly rise before your chest, get that full diaphragmatic breath in. That's all we're focusing on because breathing is such an automatic thing that if you tell someone like right now, if I tell you right now while we're talking to count how many times you blink your eyes, like look how self conscious and weird you feel right now that you're thinking about blinking your eyes, something that's, that's automatic, right? So I wouldn't do that while they're exercising unless you notice it's an issue. I wouldn't even mention it. That's that because I come from a yoga instructor, kind of moving into this new world, which is with amazing, fabulous new world, but, but breath has always been numero uno. So it's kind of. Well, so let's unpack that for a minute, right? When you're talking about yoga and I want to calm your central nervous system and relax and get in this meditative state, it does become very important part of it. It is, it is a major process of getting you to calm down, relax the central nervous system and get into those positions and to stretch and do that. When I'm strength training, less important. Yeah, it is not, you don't, I don't want you relaxed. More bracing. Yeah, there's more bracing intent and you being intense. So it isn't on the, it isn't on a priority list. Now, does that mean there's not value in learning how to brace for like a one rep max and things like that? Yes, but the 99% of the clients you're going to be training, the number one thing you just need to look out for is them holding. Yeah. Okay. So here's people will hold their breath. I'm so glad you said you're a yoga instructor because it is extremely important for yoga because you know that when you're in a position and you're challenging your body's range of motion and you feel like you're tight and let's say you're in pigeon or something like that and your hip is stretching, our tendency is to hold our breath. Oh yeah. Okay. Now holding your breath actually tells your CMS to activate your muscles. So you can't relax. My, my hips can't relax as I'm holding my breath. In that case, you want to do what's the opposite of what feels natural, which is breathe through the pain. Now, if I'm trying to lift a weight and I'm trying to activate the muscles on my hip, then you let me go ahead and embrace and do that with my breath that naturally feels natural. I'm not trying to get you to relax your CMS in that particular case. So I think your practice with breathing is wonderful and teach that to your clients through yoga positions, recovery in person, yes, through yoga positions, through stretching in between sets. I think that's phenomenal in the sets. Don't make it too much of a focus because it'll throw them off. All right. So great. That's really that's that's so great advice. I'm so excited that that this question came up and that I've been exploring and that you guys are there. I'm really tickled to be part of your show and. Thank you. Yeah, we appreciate your support. I'm going to send you Maps Prime Pro because you're going to become a new trainer. I think that's a very valuable program for trainers. Thank you. Yeah, I'm tickled. Thank you. You got it. Thank you very much. Okay. Bye. Bye bye. Thanks. You know what? I always forget when you talk to new trainers, the stuff that you used to think was important. Yeah, that's such a common one. Totally common. Oh, yeah, I used I used to love to just like do that to clients like that. It makes every even more sense for coming from her yoga background because that like for like she said, this is like the first focal point that you're trying to establish with people in the class. I remember specifically learning that yoga class because I was in I breathe for strength training, right? So I'm in a position. I'm holding a stretch and I'm like doing what I naturally do which is brace and the instructor goes when you do that, you're telling your CNS to stay tight. And I'm like, oh, oh, you're right. So I started breathing relaxed and all of a sudden my muscles loosened up totally different. So it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and there's a guarantee there's some trainers going to hear this and they're going to be like, oh, that is all you got barking and saying how important it can be. If I have a if I'm learning or I'm teaching a client and we're like one rep max type bullshit, like we're going to put a little more emphasis on the you ain't doing that with a beginner though. Yeah, no, you're not. I'm not one rep maxing with any of my clients. So it's not something I'm going to teach somebody like that. The ad late and your points perfect that they have so much they have to think about. It's like a golf swing, right? Like there's so many things that you're you're thinking about to just add another thing that really is not quite up there on the list, especially as long as they're doing it, if you are breathing and you're not holding your breath, you're fine. And if somebody's lifting something heavy, they naturally will grunt. And what they're doing is they're breathing out with brace. That's what that's what that is right there. So by the way, for gyms who tell people not to grunt, it's like you're messing people up.