Breathing cues

I find myself trying to compress my body so hard during posterior pelvic tilt on the various PE1/2 exercises that I'm essentially holding my breath. For instance on scapular shrugs or incline rows. Obviously I need to breathe! So I imagine it's breath in on eccentric phase and breath out on concentric phase of muscle use? Thanks for the tips!

Hi @Brian Sparks,

Yes that is true. You need to breath. Holding your breath on static positions are a no-no too! 

On 5/26/2017 at 9:30 PM, Brian Sparks said:

I find myself trying to compress my body so hard during posterior pelvic tilt on the various PE1/2 exercises that I'm essentially holding my breath. For instance on scapular shrugs or incline rows. Obviously I need to breathe! So I imagine it's breath in on eccentric phase and breath out on concentric phase of muscle use? Thanks for the tips!

yup yup breathing is super important, and in my experience helps create more tension and allows for greater force output during your set. 

simple cues:

- at bottom of the rep deep breath, ribs down/engage core, contract glutes, and squeeze the bar/floor or your fists as tight as possible. 

- Concentric portion exhale but do this whilst still maintaining tension ( for me usually comes out as a sharp hiss, similar to the sounds boxers or MMA fighters make when they strike) 

- Eccentric phase begin inhaling but try to maintain tension (this can get tricky and takes time to get good at) 

- repeat

^ those all can make a big difference in your training. 

- I would also recommend incorporating a couple practice breaths in your warm up. You can do this by laying on your back taking a deep breath in, engaging your core pushing your lower back into the ground & bringing sternum/ribs down. Hold for 2-3s then exhale but dont let your back lift off the ground. Repeat for 10 reps. 

For Isometrics I have found short breaths repeated in 3-5s intervals to helpful, but cant say this is optimal. 

Thoughts anyone? 

I stand to be corrected here Ryan, but I think this is one of the particular cases where Coach Sommer might say, it does not really matter as long as you can complete the set well without breaking form.

18 minutes ago, Luke Searra said:

I stand to be corrected here Ryan, but I think this is one of the particular cases where Coach Sommer might say, it does not really matter as long as you can complete the set well without breaking form.

my thoughts as well, for isometrics that is. For non isometric exercises I have seen it make very big improvements in my ability to get through sets with good form and bust through plateaus. A lot of what I said above is stuff preached by pavel tsatsouline which is hard to argue against

Thanks that is very practical advise. Too bad I had not read this before my core workout today lol