• October 5, 2026
• Ken Roche

You’re halfway through a strength-training exercise. Your muscles are working. The resistance feels increasingly challenging. You’re concentrating on keeping the movement slow and controlled.

Then your instructor says:

“Keep breathing.”

And you realize—you weren’t.

Holding your breath when something becomes difficult is surprisingly natural. But during strength training, breathing is more than background activity. It’s an important part of performing exercise with control.

Author and journalist James Nestor brought considerable attention to breathing with his book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. His work explores a simple idea: we all breathe, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we pay attention to how we breathe.

Strength training is a great place to start paying attention.

Why Do We Hold Our Breath When Things Get Hard?

Think about the last time you lifted something heavy, pushed open a stubborn door, or tried to move a piece of furniture.

Chances are, you instinctively held your breath.

The same thing can happen during strength training.

As muscular effort increases, people may tense their face, jaw, neck, and shoulders and unintentionally stop breathing. During resistance exercise, however, breath-holding can contribute to a much greater rise in blood pressure than continuous breathing.

That makes a simple instruction surprisingly valuable:

Keep the air moving.

For most health-focused strength training, you don’t need an elaborate breathing technique. You simply want to avoid turning a challenging repetition into a breath-holding contest.

Breathing Is Part of Good Technique

At SuperSlow Zone, we talk a lot about control.

You control the movement.

You maintain good positioning.

You focus on the muscles being trained.

And breathing belongs on that list.

Slow-motion strength training gives you time to notice what your body is doing as an exercise becomes progressively more challenging.

When you feel the urge to hold your breath, try to maintain a comfortable, continuous breathing pattern instead.

Your breathing may naturally become faster as the exercise becomes harder. That’s okay. The goal isn’t to force every breath to remain perfectly slow.

The goal is to continue breathing while the muscles continue working.

What James Nestor Can Teach Us About Breathing

One of the central ideas in Nestor’s work is that the nose does much more than simply provide another way for air to enter the body.

Your nasal passages help:

• Filter particles from incoming air
• Warm and humidify the air before it reaches your lungs
• Regulate airflow
• Produce nitric oxide within the nasal passages

The material inspired by Nestor’s Breath also emphasizes slower, more deliberate breathing and greater awareness of habitual mouth breathing.

Those ideas can encourage us to become more aware of our breathing throughout the day.

But strength training introduces an important difference:

Exercise changes your body’s demand for air.

Nose or Mouth? Your Body May Need Both

Nasal breathing can be useful and comfortable at rest and during lower-intensity activity. You may even notice that breathing through your nose helps you settle into a calmer rhythm before your workout begins.

But as muscular effort rises, your breathing needs can change.

That means you don’t have to force yourself to breathe exclusively through your nose during a challenging strength-training exercise.

If nasal breathing feels comfortable, use it.

If you naturally begin using your mouth as the exercise becomes demanding, that’s okay.

For SuperSlow Zone clients, the more important lesson is:

Don’t stop breathing just because the exercise gets difficult.

That’s a more practical goal than trying to maintain one specific breathing route throughout the entire workout.

The Hardest Part of the Exercise Is When Breathing Matters Most

The beginning of an exercise may feel relatively manageable.

Then the muscles begin to fatigue.

The resistance feels heavier.

Your movement slows.

Your concentration increases.

And that’s precisely when you’re most likely to tighten up and hold your breath.

Instead, think:

Slow movement. Relaxed face. Steady breathing. Working muscles.

Your instructor can help you maintain that control while ensuring the targeted muscles—not unnecessary tension elsewhere—are doing the work.

This is one advantage of supervised strength training. Someone else is watching the details that can become difficult to notice when you’re concentrating on completing the exercise.

Breathing Can Help You Reset Between Exercises

Breathing matters after an exercise, too.

Once you’ve completed a challenging exercise, give your breathing a moment to settle.

Instead of immediately rushing to the next movement, controlled breathing can become part of the transition.

Nestor discusses slow breathing practices, including a pattern of approximately a 5.5-second inhale and 5.5-second exhale, or roughly 5.5 breaths per minute.

You don’t need to follow that exact timing during your workout. In fact, your body may need a much faster breathing rate immediately after a demanding exercise.

But the broader lesson is useful:

Notice your breath.

As your body recovers, allow your breathing to gradually become comfortable again.

Try This During Your Next Workout

During your next SuperSlow Zone session, conduct a little experiment.

As an exercise becomes challenging, notice what happens.

Does your jaw tighten?

Do your shoulders rise?

Do you start breathing faster?

Do you suddenly realize you’ve stopped breathing?

You don’t need to judge or correct every little change. Simply becoming aware of your breathing is a useful first step.

Then follow your instructor’s coaching and continue to breathe as you work through the challenging portion of the exercise.

Strength Training Is About More Than Moving Resistance

A productive strength-training session isn’t simply about moving a machine from Point A to Point B.

It’s about how you perform the movement.

Posture matters.

Speed matters.

Resistance matters.

Effort matters.

And breathing matters.

James Nestor’s work reminds us that something we do automatically every day deserves more attention. Strength training gives us a perfect opportunity to put that awareness into practice.

So the next time your muscles begin telling you, “This is getting hard,” remember:

You don’t need to rush.

You don’t need to tense your entire body.

And you definitely don’t need to hold your breath.

Stay controlled. Keep working. And keep breathing.