Breathing for Bodybuilders: Hold a Pose

Bodybuilding asks for more than almost any other sport I have come across, and hardly anyone does it on its own. Every competitor I have worked with has a full career running alongside it. That means training at 4am so it fits before the workday, eating on a schedule that does not care how your meetings are going, and fitting friends and family into whatever is left over. If anything is left over.

With that much going on, the breath is usually the last thing anyone thinks about. It sits in the background doing its job, until you are on stage in your third pose, the judges are taking their time, and you can feel your breathing starting to get away from you. Then your waist moves, your shoulders lift, and the whole picture softens right when you need it tight.

Has breathing for bodybuilding been studied?

There is research on breathing and sport in general. Slow-paced breathing before competition, breath-hold training, nasal breathing during endurance work. Even there, the picture is thinner than you would expect. A review of breathing strategies in sport concluded that the connection between breathing and performance remains unclear. A systematic review of breath-hold training found no significant improvement in maximal aerobic capacity. Neither review tested bodybuilding poses.

On bodybuilding specifically, there is next to nothing, and on what to do with your breath while holding a pose, I cannot find a controlled study at all. That is not evidence it does not matter. So what follows leans on respiratory physiology, combined with what I have seen working with competitors. It is practical advice, not a proven performance protocol.

Worth saying plainly: I am not a bodybuilder. I work with the breath. You know your sport far better than I do, so take this as one half of the picture and combine it with what you already know about your own posing and your own body.

Your breath has three parts

Inhale, hold, exhale. Most people only ever think about the first one. In my work with competitors, the inhale is often the strong one already.

The inhale

Try taking the longest, slowest inhale you can. You might manage a big one and also notice your chest and shoulders rising with it. Getting that breath to expand around the lower ribs, without pushing the waist forward, can be harder. Two things can play a part:

• Your poses depend on a narrow waist. Visible belly movement works against that, so it makes sense that you may have trained yourself away from it during posing.
• A day of work, training and rushing can leave you tense before you even practise. Notice whether that changes how you breathe, rather than assuming one breathing pattern describes every competitor.

The exhale

Now do the opposite. Breathe in comfortably, then let out a long, slow exhale. Compare the two. If the inhale feels easy but the end of the exhale feels strained, that tells you something useful: there is room to practise a controlled exhale. Do not push to empty your lungs or turn it into a test.

The hold

The hold is where a lot of the interesting work happens, and it is also the part to build up to. For some people, holding the breath is uncomfortable enough to tip into panic. Some find a brief, comfortable pause quiets their head. Your experience might be different.

During a hold, rising carbon dioxide is an important part of the urge to breathe, though oxygen levels and other signals also matter. That urge can feel strong without being a reason to chase a longer hold. Begin away from training and posing, stop at mild air hunger, then recover with normal breathing. Do not practise holds in or near water.

What to train before you compete

Make room for the diaphragm

If the breath will not go low, posture is one place to look. Try a small tailbone tuck, lengthen through your torso and let your lower ribs settle without crunching down. See if the breath feels easier around your lower ribs. You do not need to hold one rigid posture all day, and this is not a replacement for posing instruction.

Our guide to diaphragmatic breathing explains how to practise lower-rib movement away from the stage.

Load the exhale

If the exhale is the harder part for you, that is the one worth training. Try four seconds in through the nose and six seconds out. Out can be nose or mouth, whichever feels better. Do it for five minutes before bed, when you have nothing else to do with the time. The rhythm matters more than reaching a particular number on your first try.

Build comfort with air hunger

Gradual, comfortable holds can help you get used to the first urge to breathe. That may make it easier to notice when you need to take a quiet breath on stage, but we do not have research showing that hold practice improves posing. Think of it like learning the feel of a lift, not trying to beat a personal record every session.

The full CO2 tolerance training guide explains the difference between a controlled first-urge hold and maximal apnoea training.

How to breathe while posing on stage

Competition is its own thing. You would not tell a sprinter to use a slow bedtime breathing rhythm mid-race. The same idea applies here. The training happens in the months before. On stage, the aim is to keep the pose steady while still leaving room to breathe.

The pattern I would start with goes like this. As you move into a pose, inhale to about two-thirds full rather than all the way. A full inhale leaves you nowhere to go. From two-thirds you still have room above you, which matters in a minute.

Hold without bearing down. When a little pressure starts to build, take a very small sip of air through the nose. Not a full breath, a sip. Take it before you are fighting for air. Sip again if it feels comfortable and the pressure returns. If you do need a normal breath, take one rather than forcing the pose.

Then when the turn comes, use it. Take a long controlled exhale through the nose as you transition, or through the mouth if you need to. Go into the next pose at around two-thirds again and repeat. Treat it as something to test in posing practice, not a rule that fits everybody.

If the sips do not suit you

Some people hate them. The alternative is light breathing, with small quiet inhales and exhales while you hold the pose. Try it in practice and make sure you are still breathing comfortably. Do not deliberately restrict your air to keep your waist still.

Where to start

If you take one thing from this, make it the exhale work and a bit of gradual, comfortable hold practice. Five minutes a day attached to something you already do is worth far more than one hard session on Sunday. Consistency helps you learn the pattern without turning it into another test.

If you are new to all this, start with our breathwork beginner's guide. We built Remindful for the daily practice. The app measures where your breath is right now, then builds a short routine around your own pattern, so you are not guessing which technique to do next.

Try the Remindful app free at app.beremindful.com.