Quick Breathing Tip to Improve Your Bench Press
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Here’s a quick and easy tip for the bench press: it is possible and possibly desirable to perform more than one rep on a single breath.
In other words, you can hold your Valsalva maneuver for multiple reps in a row, and in fact, it may actually be advantageous to perform two or perhaps three reps on one breath.
How Could This Possibly be True?
Every time you take a new breath, you have to perform your Valsalva and get tight again. In the bench press, you’re essentially lying on your lungs (technically, you’re lying on your torso, which contains your lungs, but I digress), so every time you breathe, you create potential movement between your torso and the bench. This movement can compromise your bench press setup position, so you now have to work to reestablish that position (e.g., pulling your shoulders back into retraction) before you start the next rep.
With this in mind, if you’re not running out of oxygen, you may find it useful to perform a few reps on one breath.
But What About . . . ?
It’s certainly worth pointing out two caveats with this tip. First, this breathing technique works very well with the bench press, but I would not generally recommend it for any of the standing lifts (e.g., squat, deadlift, press, etc.).
Second, don’t take this as a personal challenge to see how many reps you can bench press on one breath. There are no bonus points for “reps-per-breath,” and the last thing you want to do is pass out from a lack of oxygen when you’re holding a heavy barbell above your face.
Keeping these two caveats in mind, feel free to try this out - intelligently - the next time you bench press.
As always, we hope this helps you get stronger and live better.
-Phil
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