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Barbell Deadlift Breathing

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Currently I breathe at the bottom of my setup and at the top of each rep to stay tight at the bottom in order to touch and go. The only other way of breathing I've done is slight exhale on the way up during +90% attempts. I don't feel like I'm losing spinal stability by breathing at the top. I've only done what feels comfortable to me and I've never really considered if there are better breathing techniques and am curious how others prefer to breathe during their deadlifts.
 
I let out a bit of air at my sticking point, or point of highest tension, to avoid getting lightheaded, and breath with the bar on the ground.
 
The way I teach my students is to breathe only at the bottom unless they feel as though they'll pass out. In that case, they can exhale slightly and sip the air back in at the top and before the descent. I do not have people breathe while moving. Now I wouldn't tell that to a competitive powerlifter... But for someone who is a beginner or intermediate lifter, that's always my instruction. Pretty much the same for any of the big lifts. Then there's much less chance of losing their cylinder.
 
Specifically for the setup, the two broad approaches I teach are:
Get tight while standing and keep it
Get tight at the bottom after setting the grip

Each has pros and cons, and are practiced according to the preference of the lifter all else equal.

As for the execution...
natewhite39 said:
I use the exact same breathing as with swings
Click to expand...
 
Alternate version:
- setup, breath in, power breath, sniff in again to have around 80% air
- lift while holding your breath
- at the top, release a bit, sniff in again, set the barbell down

Note: I like to do my sets od DLs like singles - not touch and go.
 
The purpose of the breathing is to help you get tight and stay tight while lifting the weight - any order of things you do that accomplishes that end is good.

@Pavel Macek, I practice a "set of singles" in order hone my competition form, but there are some interesting things about touch and go. One is owning the weight - a weight you can use for a light touch-and-go, meaning you only just graze the ground with the plates before coming back up again, is a weight you own. I like 5's with 75% or so for this.

Another interesting thing about touch-and-go sets is that your starting point for every rep after the first will sometime be different than the first - the touch-and-go position is usually a better one, and thus worth finding and trying to get into at the start of your first rep.

Touch and go sets are also a way to give a hypertrophy boost to the deadlift, since the lift then has both phases. I am using mixing them now into my training, but when the meet gets closer, I will switch to doing almost all sets of singles.

-S-
 
Steve Freides said:
The purpose of the breathing is to help you get tight and stay tight while lifting the weight - any order of things you do that accomplishes that end is good.

@Pavel Macek, I practice a "set of singles" in order hone my competition form, but there are some interesting things about touch and go. One is owning the weight - a weight you can use for a light touch-and-go, meaning you only just graze the ground with the plates before coming back up again, is a weight you own. I like 5's with 75% or so for this.

Another interesting thing about touch-and-go sets is that your starting point for every rep after the first will sometime be different than the first - the touch-and-go position is usually a better one, and thus worth finding and trying to get into at the start of your first rep.

Touch and go sets are also a way to give a hypertrophy boost to the deadlift, since the lift then has both phases. I am using mixing them now into my training, but when the meet gets closer, I will switch to doing almost all sets of singles.

-S-
Click to expand...
Steve

The touch and go technique for DL would definitely bring in the eccentric component of the exercise if there is a more controlled descent. I would think that the concentric portion is actually made easier by keeping a bit of the elastic/bounce component at the bottom - rather the lifting a true dead weight.
 
@Norcoaster, yes to what you said. I have no interest in a bounce at the bottom - might be good for cranking out more reps but I'm weakest off the floor so I'd be getting more reps at a cost of not training the very thing I need to work on most. As you said, it's no longer really quite a full, dead lift.

But just a light touch and then back up again - this is good, IMHO, for the reasons I gave. Credit to Marty Gallagher for introducing this concept to me.

I hasten to add that there is a reason it's not recommended for beginners, however - it's risky in terms of back injury. I do it with a weight I own and, although it should be obvious, let's say it anyway for everyone reading along: you can't own _any_ weight at a movement until your technique and experience reach a certain level. Please do deadlifts in the way that's safest and most effective for you as an individual.

-S-
 
I breathe at the bottom, fill the canister. Exhale on the way down. Kirk Karwoski, breathes at the top, I can't do it.
 
@donbdc, me, too. For stuff that's not too heavy, I can breath at the top and hold it, and I think it's a very good way to teach beginners to deadlift, but I usually set up at the bottom, too.

Of course, if you're doing touch-and-go with a light touch, you're doing both at the top.

-S-
 
Steve Freides said:
@Norcoaster, yes to what you said. I have no interest in a bounce at the bottom - might be good for cranking out more reps but I'm weakest off the floor so I'd be getting more reps at a cost of not training the very thing I need to work on most. As you said, it's no longer really quite a full, dead lift.

But just a light touch and then back up again - this is good, IMHO, for the reasons I gave. Credit to Marty Gallagher for introducing this concept to me.

I hasten to add that there is a reason it's not recommended for beginners, however - it's risky in terms of back injury. I do it with a weight I own and, although it should be obvious, let's say it anyway for everyone reading along: you can't own _any_ weight at a movement until your technique and experience reach a certain level. Please do deadlifts in the way that's safest and most effective for you as an individual.

-S-
Click to expand...
@Steve Freides would you recommend then to a person like myself who is just getting into the deadlift game with PTTP I would be further ahead to do each rep as a single instead of one continuous set of 5?
 
PTTP is brilliant when it comes to teaching deadlifting. Unless you have a compelling reason to do otherwise, I would follow PTTP's every last word of instructions until you've done it up to some level, e.g., you've reached a 2x bodyweight DL or nearly that, or you've been doing it for a year or so - something like that.

And lest I've made PTTP sound like a beginner's book, I and many other still follow most of its advice. It's just that, as you gain experience, you will sometimes figure out that something different in practice works better for you while still adhering to the PTTP principles, e.g., those of us who setup at the bottom are doing it because we can get tighter that way. The important thing is to get tight, and the PTTP way of doing it is time-tested and we know it works to teach people who don't know how to do this how to do it safely and effectively.

Make sense?

-S-
 
Inhaling as much possible and holding the breath all the way up seriously increase my blood pressure and makes me dizzy afterwards. Instead, I inhale around 3/4 of my full capacity, then I slowly exhale while maintaining the intra-abdominal pressure on the way up. In Power to the People book, Pavel mentions about Prof. Vladimir Zatsiorsky and his recommendation regarding a core exercise.By the way, I never agreed with Pavel with his breathing pattern teaching in Power to the People. Anyways, I searched that person and found couple books of him in the past. There was a book of him in which there were many research about athlete development. When I was glancing over the book, I witnessed the Zatsiorsky had mentioned exactly the same things I already thought. The book was mentioning that getting lungs completely fulled with air unnecessarily increases blood pressure. In addition to that, whenever possible it is good to let go air when body has to absorb heavy forces created by hard movements such as deadlifts. He also mentions cardiovascular system adjust itself to the stress overtime and recommends proceeding slowly and giving some time cardiovascular system to adjust to increasing blood pressure through a lot of practice. I also read somewhere else that holding breath during one time lifts does not have very damaging effect on body but doing so many times is dangerous.

My recommendation is to keep blood pressure low as much as possible if you are not a competitive lifter. It is also very person specific problem because not everybody has the same neuromuscular efficiency or cardiovascular durability. It is best to listen what your gut says.
 
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