Question concerning breathing during hollow body

Hello, after lurking around gymnastic bodies and absorbing a plethora of knowledge I have decided to embark on the journey to achieving gymnastics strength by purchasing F1 and HS1. I will be honest, I have been greatly humbled by some of the exercises in the book as I considered myself to be fit (bench 1.5x BW, deadlift 2.4x BW, squat 1.5x BW weak legs ) yet I could not bring myself to hold a planche lean or an arch body hold. I have embraced the fact that achieving gymnastics strength is going to take dedication and a significant investment of time.

On with my question, how is one supposed to breathe during a hollow body hold? I am not sure if holding my breath is a healthy thing to do but holding my breath reduces the amount of shaking I experience and from what I understand shaking is not a good thing... I could not tell if Coach's athlete in the video demonstration was breathing or not, could anyone explain this for me? Thank you!

Tucker said:

Hello, after lurking around gymnastic bodies and absorbing a plethora of knowledge I have decided to embark on the journey to achieving gymnastics strength by purchasing F1 and HS1. I will be honest, I have been greatly humbled by some of the exercises in the book as I considered myself to be fit (bench 1.5x BW, deadlift 2.4x BW, squat 1.5x BW weak legs ) yet I could not bring myself to hold a planche lean or an arch body hold. I have embraced the fact that achieving gymnastics strength is going to take dedication and a significant investment of time.

 

On with my question, how is one supposed to breathe during a hollow body hold? I am not sure if holding my breath is a healthy thing to do but holding my breath reduces the amount of shaking I experience and from what I understand shaking is not a good thing... I could not tell if Coach's athlete in the video demonstration was breathing or not, could anyone explain this for me? Thank you!

inhale through your nose and blow it out your nose. shallow, purposed breathing, don't lose control of it while in a static position.

in a dynamic situation, its a little tricky, because you'll have to develop a rhythm. either go with whats comfortable but since some of us work with martial systems, we try to exhale on the excecution of power. so for example in a pushup, we'll exhale while pushing the ground or in a pull up, exhale when we pull ourselves up. 

as for hollow hold, shallow breathing and don't let it change your ROM

Tucker said:

On with my question, how is one supposed to breathe during a hollow body hold? I am not sure if holding my breath is a healthy thing to do but holding my breath reduces the amount of shaking I experience and from what I understand shaking is not a good thing... I could not tell if Coach's athlete in the video demonstration was breathing or not, could anyone explain this for me? Thank you!

Holding your breath will make it easier to tense your core muscles. For example, it will help you doing a Hollow Lift as required in HS SE12>iM. But that is not what you are talking about, I think. Holding a hollow body position (like in sPL/PE1) should not require such an effort from your core. You start to shake because your (neuro)muscular system is not yet up to the task (of holding a hollow body). Just give it time. Start with short  (5-10 seconds) holds and build from there as laid out for you in the F1 program. Breath consciously. Shallow breathing is always a bad idea, because it reduces your oxygen uptake unnecessarily. Whether you breath through your mouth or your nose does not matter. How deeply you breath, depends on your aerobic conditioning. If you are in a really (and I mean really) bad (an)aerobic shape even a simple task like holding a GST position may have you gasping for breath; I don’t expect you are. Consciously breathing in and out helps me to focus. So, it may help you too. I haven’t asked but I am sure the athlete in the demo video is breathing without even thinking about it. 

Holding your breath during GST is not recommended.  

- Doing so under great exertion will often lead to an extreme tension headache.

- Breath calmly and shallowly.  You will need to learn to only tense the muscles.  

The self test here is simplicity itself; if you cannot perform your exercise while continuing to breath shallowly you are not correctly tensing the muscles.

- Later it will not be possible anyway to hold your breath for entire sets of more advanced GST work so you should learn to do this correctly now.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Thank you for clarifying the matter Coach, looks like I have a lot of work to do!

Coach Sommer said:

Holding your breath during GST is not recommended.  

 

- Doing so under great exertion will often lead to an extreme tension headache.

 

- Breath calmly and shallowly.  You will need to learn to only tense the muscles.  

 

The self test here is simplicity itself; if you cannot perform your exercise while continuing to breath shallowly you are not correctly tensing the muscles.

 

- Later it will not be possible anyway to hold your breath for entire sets of more advanced GST work so you should learn to do this correctly now.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I'm new to F1- and I just did a search on breathing to find out if specific breathing techniques are preferable when doing these type of exercises. 90 % of the time good diaphragmatic breathing( circumferential expansion of core) is the way to go and allows optimal synergy of bodies musculature. I consciously focus on expanding my diaphragm laterally and posteriorly during static holds and it feels good. I'm not taking deep breathes by any means but they are not chesty shallow breaths. 

Is there any modification I should make to my breathing that is more conducive to the F1 program and this type of training as a whole ?

Thanks

Alhumb