Dave, holding your breath can help when lifting heavy. If you have high blood pressure, heart disease or something like that, holding your breath is not a good idea. But then, weightlifting in general isn't a good idea for such a person; when a healthy person lifts heavy, their blood pressure leaps up, so if someone with naturally high blood pressure lifts heavy... pop! So the hypertension (etc) patient must get their blood pressure under control first, with medication, and a slow start to exercise, building up cautiously over months.
If you are generally healthy, then holding your breath can help on exercises like squat, etc. The most important thing is to follow your instincts. If you have to push a car or lift a box when moving, you instinctively hold your breath. If you have to push something over your head or lift yourself over a wall, you usually don't.
Breathe or hold your breath on each exercise as you find most comfortable.
I'm a fitness student, and we're constantly being told to teach our future clients how to breathe correctly during resistance exercises.
I'm a fitness student, too (see sig). We're taught a lot of things. Some of them are right, some are wrong, some are debatable. It's important to do your own research, speaking to people who are qualified, people who have experience, and medical professionals. In this way you can get the most information and a sensible and balanced view of things.
minihulk64 said:
And you should NEVER hold your breathe due to the blood flow stopping leading to strokes.
Please ask your teachers to tell you
exactly how many people suffer strokes each year while lifting weights. Then ask them how many people
apart from elderly hypertension or heart disease patients suffer strokes while lifting weights.
A healthy young adult is at low risk of strokes due to
any cause. A person with a history of high blood pressure, heart disease and the like will want to consider carefully before holding their breath before lifting something heavy.
However, someone with high blood pressure and similar issues is most likely deconditioned - weak and unfit - and cannot lift anything heavy anyway; by the time they can lift heavy enough that holding their breath or not will make a difference to how much they can lift, their blood pressure will probably have dropped from those months of exercise.