Training to breathe more strongly is a benefit to EVERY athlete...the better your breathe control, the better an athlete you'll be.
Essentially, the idea here is to challenge your breathing muscles by supporting a heavy weight while doing "combat breathing" or square breathing.
This means breathing in for a 4 count, holding for a 4 count, breathing out for a 4 count, then holding the exhale for a 4 count.
Then repeat.
It's also known as "square" because it's got 4 equal "sides."
The normal goal of combat breathing is to calm the nervous system. When you're in combat, your adrenaline obviously goes through the roof...and the adrenaline dump will blow up your accuracy and higher thought processes.
This type of breathing creates a signal to the body to calm the nervous system.
Doing this with 800 lbs on your back is an interesting paradox because just HAVING 800 lbs on your back is a pretty strong signal to the nervous system to activate strongly.
But that's not the goal of THIS particular method (though learning to relax under load CAN be beneficial in certain activities).
Besides the connective tissue training benefits, the main purpose here is to strongly challenge your breathing muscles (your diaphragm, intercostals and every other little muscle that contributes to breathing).
These muscles can be strengthened just like any other muscle....and this is the best way I've found to do it.
Each "combat breath" you take forces those muscles to work against the load that you're supporting.
For me personally, this is targeted to long distance loaded carries where I find the slow crushing of the lungs to be the primary "weak link" for non-stop carrying. That's why I've put this exercise in the "Loaded Carries" section of my site.
For lifters, it may be the ability to do heavy, higher reps squats while maintaining your ability to breathe effectively under that load.
For athletes in general, having significantly stronger breathing muscles will be a tremendous benefit because most athletes tend do tend to benefit from more efficient breathing.
If you want to try this one, start with your squat 1 RM first. It gets uncomfortable, especially holding the exhale. Once you get an idea of how it feels and how to do it, you can progress up pretty quick from there.
The bar I'm using is a Marrs Bar (perfect for this stuff), but you can use any safety squat bar or even a straight bar.
The straight bar will be the toughest because it will also challenge the ability of your shoulders to keep the bar supported properly on your back (a Manta Ray squat bar support can help with this).
The overall key is get under load then breathe under control, learning to RELAX under load.
Try this "tightrope" method for better and faster Farmers Walk Carries.
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