JUNKY
<<SALUTE>> to you for your service and sacrifices on behalf of the rest of us!!
i would be willing to bet that you could easily jump your score from that 270 to the 300 if you incorporated some very simple breathing exercises into your routine.
the most common mistakes that people make when working out is a failure to breathe properly.
when i was working out, free weights, i plateaued. no matter what i did i could not get my max up over 300 or my set weights up over 225 for 10's. then a guy at the gym decided that he had watched me struggling to improve for long enough to lead him to believe i was worth a little effort. so he took some time and taught me some basic breathing exercises.
now in most cases i wouldn't have given much credence to someone "volunteering" to teach me something, especially when i don't know them to begin with. but this case was a little different than normal, i had witnessed this guy press 600lbs. so he obviously knew something about weight training.
the principle is very simple, just like a long distance runner your muscles will fatigue faster without oxygen. the rabbit breathing almost hyper ventilating method of breathing doesn't cut it. steady deep rhythmic breathing through the exercise produces much more oxygen enriched blood to feed the muscles. deep steady intake of air during the non-flexing stage of the exercise (i.e. on the way down in a push up) then the explosive deep chested push from the diaphragm during the power phase of the rep (i.e. the upward push of a push up).
keep in mind, it is worth taking an extra half second to do the relaxed part of the rep in order to draw a deeper breath than to bang the reps out faster than you can breath. it is also important to remember to expel your breath through the entire range of the pressure half of the rep, don't blow it out at the beginning and then hold it through the rest.
now the biggest trick breath in through and open mouth out through clenched teeth. this allows you to grab more air going in and steady the flow of air going out.
you can practice this when you are not working out, its easy enough. sit down (very important because until you are use to it you could get light headed and risk passing out) put your head all the way down so your chest is on your lap. begin to sit up straight slowly (at first take about 3 seconds sitting up then work on taking longer as you get comfortable doing it) as you sit up spread your arms wide to your sides and breath in open mouthed. draw your breath in as deeply as possible through the entire sitting up movement. you will feel your chest get tight around your lungs as you learn to breath in deeply. as time passes and you do this for longer reps your lungs will start to grow bigger. they will stretch and expand, allowing them to hold more air.
when you reach the top pause for a second or two holding your breath. then as you start to lower your head again expel your air in a solid steady constant push through your clenched teeth. this like the up stroke must be steady and slow. start at 3 seconds down and as your reach the point where you have breath left over at the end of each rep lengthen the time.
when you get to the point where you are doing these for 6 to 8 seconds in each direction for 10 to 15 reps per set and your not feeling any light headedness try doing them standing up.
it sounds alot harder to do than it is. at the age of 33 i had 117% normal lung capacity for my age and build. doesn't sound like much until you figure in that i started smoking at the dumb-arsed age of 6 and never quit.
simple math oxygen to the muscles equals strength and endurance, the longer the breath the more oxygen available.
also, if you are doing these exercises and you feel your heart rate climbing don't worry about it. its a natural side effect of deep breathing.
last bit of advice, come home safely!
good luck
FLOTSOM
oh and as a footnote within 3 weeks of starting these exercises i broke the plateau i was on, my working set weight started going up continuously until i was doing 3 sets of 10 with 285lbs and my max bench went up to 380 within a few months. im sure it would have gone higher but i got a minor a/c separation in my right shoulder (i wasn't paying attention to what i was doing while warming up one day) had to slow down on the working out heavy for awhile then life changed and i just never went back to it.
