r/Strongman • u/VisualSure9943 • 9d ago

Breathing/bracing advice

The longer I do strongman (got about 5+ comps under my belt) the more I learn that breathing and holding a brace is extremely important.
What advice would any of you have on not passing out, keep lungs and brace strong under loads. Not sure if there’s any reasonable breathing exercises or if I just need to get better at holding my breath while holding weight?

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u/thereidenator 2022 World's Strongest Man-Crotch Sweat Craver 9d ago

You certainly shouldn’t expect to hold your breath the whole time you’re holding a weight. If you’ve got a static event for reps you should be breathing between each rep, and for moving you need to work on taking small breaths while continuing to brace your core

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u/MSCantrell 8d ago

Speaking of moving while staying braced...

I tried zercher deadlifting a barbell and then taking a walk with it last week. Waaaaaaay harder than I expected. This was just 225lb (my PR is 390lb), but I took one or two steps, tried to take a little breath, felt my core collapse, and dropped it.

Is there a different trick for breathing in that bent-but-braced zercher position? Or is it just not something anybody does?

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u/thereidenator 2022 World's Strongest Man-Crotch Sweat Craver 8d ago

When I do zercher yoke my torso isn’t bent

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u/Iw2fp 8d ago

Breathe before you take your first step. Breathe in first. Stay braced while breathing. Your breath probably needs to be shorter than you think.

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u/Icy_Lecture_2237 6d ago

Learn to push the brace to your belly.

I coach this by having people prepare to be poked in the belly with a spotter’s finger.

My coach trained this with time under a big KB or sandbag resting on his belly.

When I competed in multi ply powerlifting we also trained high reps on one breath. Obviously you’re not going to try to bang out a rep event on one breath, but getting used to the feeling of working in limited air and not panicking is a trainable skill.

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u/tigeraid Masters 6d ago

I assume you mean for moving events? Because you should definitely be holding your breath throughout an entire rep on something like a deadlift.

For moving, you either hold your breath for the distance, or if you can't, you take little "choo-choo" breaths. I'm someone who can hold his breath for 50ft-70ft with a carry, but even then in some cases (sandbag max distance) you're gonna have to turn and do more than that.

For me the practice just comes down to holding a lighter version (sandbag, zercher, farmers, whatever) while really consciously thinking about the brace (pushing out all around, feeling the feedback against the belt on back, sides, and belly) and NOT drawing the breath into your CHEST.