Hey Athletes! Want to learn how to breathe on tempo squats? Then tune into this week’s episode of Ask Me Anything!
Episode 26 of Ask Me Anything is up!
Ask Me Anything: How to Breathe On Tempo Squats
In this week’s episode of Ask Me Anything, Jerred and Joe are answering a question from Connor. He asks how to breathe on tempo squats. The coaches give their advice on breathing for tempo squats!
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Jerred
Transcript:
Ask Me Anything: How to Breathe On Tempo Squats
[00:00:00] Jerred Moon: Welcome to garage gym athlete asked me anything. It’s pretty simple. I’ll be answering questions from the thousands of athletes that follow our daily programming. If you have a question or topic you want submitted, go to dot com slash AMA. Let’s get started.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage. The mathlete podcast. Jared moon here with Joe Courtney. What’s up, Joe.
Joe Courtney: Hey, what’s up man.
Jerred Moon: I’m March doing some, ask me anything. Just one, just one today. all right, so let’s, let’s just jump right into it. I mean, your beard is your beard and we’re just gonna leave it where it’s at.
So Connor asks what’s the best way to breathe on those tempo squats. I’ve been squatting with the breath, hold Val salvia top by a Rippetoe and starting strength. But I thought I was going to pass out [00:01:00] doing that with four one, one, one. I tried breathing through each rep, but that made me lose a lot of core stability.
Any recommendations? For next time. So that’s a good question. If, anyone listening, watching whatever’s unfamiliar with tempo squats, we program them quite a bit just because the research on them is pretty solid. It helps you, build a lot of strength, you know, throughout the entire movement, as opposed to just doing the same type of squat every time.
So, and he’s referencing for one, one, one in the squad, that’d be four seconds. A four second negatives of four seconds on the way down a one second pause and the top, and then it should take you one repetition or one second to get back to the standing position, which is more of a controlled ascent. If you can, sometimes you will get confused in the difference between a zero and a one on coming up from the squat.
And then when you’re at the top, you’d kind of rest, you know, pause or whatever for one second, before you start that over again, back down to. Four second negatives. So [00:02:00] four one, one, one. That’s how we program it. That’s how we write it. Some coaches write a little bit differently, but we, we have it our own way.
So anyway, how should you breathe during these types of exercises? Jody, anything to start? I have a few, you know, suggestions on something like this.
Joe Courtney: So, I don’t really know much about what the Rippetoe or, cause just for breathing or the Valsalva stuff or anything like that. I just know about breathing and bracing.
And I know I just, it’s just taught to me in Hammerton that I need to breathe in and hold and brace myself to keep the core stability and even, or remarks, not that in his questions saying that when you prize the breed out or in or anything, he loses that stability. We typically only do four seconds for tempo.
That’s usually like the longest we go and four seconds, I can still hold my breath for that long on the way down. And it’s not going to be super heavy when we’re not going like 80 some percent, usually it’s 65, 70 or something like that, depending on, you know, reps and stuff. But I can still hold that for second.
Breath taking that breath. And then when I [00:03:00] get toward the bottom is when I start to slowly release it and then I released trying to keep it really on the way up. So I might not breathe as out as, strongly, I don’t know, just, there’s not a, there’s not as much force with my breath going out. I at the end of my temple, but I might do a slow release toward the bottom and then keep that slow release toward the top versus just quick.
Jerred Moon: Kind of thing. Yeah. And I would say, so breathing is really important when lifting and the Valsalva maneuver, It’s taught a lot in power lifting and really kind of pushing your belly against your belt is, you know, a good way to look at that. So like, you know, if you’re wearing a weightlifting belt, you know, pushing your, you know, bracing up against that belt is how, cause you’re not supposed to just strap on a weight lifting belt and you’re like good to go.
You’re supposed to actually, you know, take in that breadth and kind of expand your belly to where you’re. Pushing that belt out and it adds that stability. and that’s a good, it’s almost like a good coaching tool on how to breathe and brace and [00:04:00] that connect capacity. but for these four seconds, he’s saying he’s losing stability.
I mean, I would, I might drop some of the breathing, technique if you’re getting lightheaded. I mean, or if you are, I don’t know if he’s kidding when he said he’s about to pass out. but if you are, or you’re losing core stability, I’m not going to say don’t like abandon all breathing techniques, but you really just need to focus on keeping that core tight and everything tight when you’re in the bottom of the squat position.
Because if you are getting super loose and I don’t care if you’re holding your breath, not holding your breath, but I wouldn’t be so worried about it is if you’re in the bottom position, you feel like you’re gonna pass out and you need to breathe. It’s not ideal. but you can do that. You know, I’d rather breathe in that bottom position than, than pass out with a couple of hundred pounds on my back and the bottom of the squat.
and so I think that, you know, you just need to keep that into account, not be so militant about it. but never don’t mistake what I’m saying for loosening up. If you’re going to loosen up anywhere, do it at the top, [00:05:00] you know, do it at the very top. When you’re you have that one second, you can exhale.
Take that next breath. Go down. and everything, but just don’t loosen up in the bottom of the squat is the big thing. Like if, if the breathing is getting too confusing, this is kind of why I also hate tempo. Cause there’s so much thinking involved with tempo. I used to never program it because I just hated.
I just hated the execution of it, you know? Cause it’s like, okay, you have to count, like if you’re doing six or seven repetitions of tempo, it’s just annoying. It’s like one, two, three, four, or like really slower than that. But the counting is annoying. And then to add breathing on top of that, so just stay tight in the bottom of the lift, abandon the breathing until you get more comfortable tempo.
And then add that breathing back in, I think is my ultimate suggestion.
Joe Courtney: Yeah. Like controlling the exhale. When I, I was just trying to think about it in my mind of like, okay, when would I start to get. You know, either lightheaded or dizzy, it’s probably, if you start to exhale too, too early or too quickly, then you’re just out of, out of air to exhale.
But by the time you’re making your way up.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. It sounds like he’s, he’s not getting enough air out [00:06:00] and then not enough back in. So like not, not getting enough of that exhale out on the, on like wherever you like. Typically the top of the rep would at one second, pause at the top and then making sure that you have that rep back in, but at the same time, Yeah.
I think if you’re too deliberate with your breathing, that’s almost a different topic of conversation. But if tempos a long time, like if say it’s eight reps of tempo, it’s a long set. So if you’re doing this crazy exhale and crazy inhale, every single rep. You do not across four sets, you’re getting close to like hyperventilation style breathing, you know?
So that’s what I’m saying. Like, don’t be so aggressive with it. Like just try and read naturally. The biggest thing would be tight, be tight the entire time. Cause we don’t program like. 90% tempo squats. It’s typically lighter loads. Like we’ve made it pretty challenging, but it’s typically lighter loads.
so yeah, be careful with that. [00:07:00] That’s all I got you. Anything else? No, that’s it. All right, guys, if you want to ask a question, go to dot com slash AMA and we’ll get an answer to your response. but other than that, Just give us a, give us a little review, five star review, positive comment on, you know, whatever podcast player you’re listening to us right now.
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