CHAPTER FOUR
POWER BREATHING: THE MARTIAL ARTS MASTERS’ SECRET FOR SUPERSTRENGTH
• Bruce Lee called it “breath strength”
• “Compression, not exhalation”: a Tai Chi master demystifies Power Breathing
• Reverse power breathing: Evolution of the Iron Shirt technique
• Power up from the core, or the “pneumatics of Chi”
Bruce Lee called it “breath strength”
The lungs are reservoirs of air, and the air is the lord of strength. Whoever speaks of strength must know of air.
—Jui Meng, a Shaolin monk, 1692
Bruce Lee used to say that the martial arts rely more on “breath strength” than “body strength.” Indeed, cranking up the breath strength will boost the body strength. The effect of breathing patterns and intraabdominal pressure (IAP) on strength is oddly ignored by most Western strength-training authorities. Yet compressed or power breathing is one of the most powerful ways of increasing muscular strength in existence!
Think of your brain as a CD player. Think of your muscles as the speakers. Where do you think the amplifier is? In your stomach. Special receptors measure the intraabdominal pressure and act as the “volume control knob.” When the IAP bottoms out, the tension in all your muscles drops off. In my stretching book, I explain how to take advantage of this phenomenon and make dramatic gains in flexibility overnight.
On the other hand, when the internal pressure goes up, your nervous system gets more excited and the nerve cells supplying your muscles become superconductors of the commands from your brain. So, by cranking up the IAP volume knob, you will auto-matically get noticeably stronger —in every muscle in your body and with any exercise!
The stronger your midsection and the more skilled you are at maximizing the intra-abdominal pressure, the stronger you will get.
If you have a heart condition, high blood pressure, a hernia or some other health problem you must ask for a specific breathing advice from your doctor. If you are healthy enough to handle it, power breathing will be the best thing that has happened to your strength. Ever.
To make sure we are clear on the definition, power breathing is a type of breathing that maximizes the intra-abdominal pressure in order to amplify your strength.
Power inhalation
Note that the operative word here is intra-abdominal—not intra-thoracic. You have nothing good to gain from pressure in your head or chest. Send it down to your stomach!
Send the pressure into your stomach—not your chest or head.
Abdominal breathing is a skill that consistently eludes most Western men, especially the ones who puff up with virtual lats and lose the energy in their abdomen.
Puffing up with virtual lats loses the energy in the abdomen.
You must override your ego. Let your shoulders deflate, and move your breath and energy down to your abdomen.
This doesn’t mean slouching, though. Keep your neck tall and your spine straight.
Drop your shoulders. This drill will help: stand straight, your arms hanging by your sides. Without bending over reach down as low as possible with your fingertips. Tense your armpits to push your shoulders down away from your ears. Relax. Your shoulders should stay down better now.
Now imagine that your head is tied to a string and the string is pulling it up. #8220;...stretch your neck up, not forward,” stressed Mas Oyama; without shrugging the shoulders.
Don’t slouch.
Tense your armpits to push your shoulders down away from your ears.
Let your shoulders deflate, and move your breath and energy down to your abdomen.
Keep your neck tall and your spine straight.
Here’s another drill: Remove your shoes and lie down on the deck on your back.
Place one shoe on your stomach and another on your chest. (A barbell plate, a kettlebell, or your training partner sitting down are other viable options.) Practice abdominal breathing through your nose until only the shoe on your belly moves up and down (but the one on your chest does not). Remember this feeling.
What is abdominal breathing? Technically, you will not be sucking air into your belly because your lungs are upstairs. But your lungs can be expanded by using different sets of muscles. You can inhale by shrugging your shoulders, which is no good. You can inhale by expanding your rib cage, which is better but still doesn’t get you a cigar. Or you can inhale by expanding your belly.
Pay attention now. You are about to be introduced to a muscle that is vital to great strength yet never mentioned in bodybuilding magazines or even books on strength training. Perhaps because it is invisible and you can’t impress girls with it.
This mystery muscle is the diaphragm. This parachute-shaped contraption separates your lungs from your guts. When your diaphragm contracts, it pushes down and two things happen. First, your lungs get pulled down, too, which creates low pressure in them. Fresh air therefore gets sucked in. Second, your inner organs get pushed down and displaced (unless your abs are tight). Your belly expands. So, stomach breathing is really diaphragmatic breathing.
Abdominal breathing is awesome for a host of reasons: health, stress reduction, Chi or Ki cultivation, etc. But they do not relate to the narrow focus of The Naked Warrior: strength. Here is why diaphragmatic breathing is vital for strength.
Recall that inside your abdominal cavity are special sensors that measure the pressure inside your “spare tire.” When the pressure goes up, so does your strength.
The downward pressure exerted by your diaphragm is essential for upping the IAP. Recall that when you “breathe into your stomach,” the dome shaped muscle bears down and compresses your viscera. Breathing into your chest would pressurize your thoracic cavity and leave your abdomen weak; this does more to raise your blood pressure than your strength. So, breathe with your stomach, Comrade!
Inhale through your nose. Developing the habit so you keep your teeth in the ring is not the only reason. Taking your air in through a smaller hole will make for a stronger diaphragmatic action and better compression.
Note how sucking air in through your mouth creates a hollow, weak feeling inside. Now try it through your nose. To make an even stronger point, pinch your nose half shut and try it again. You cannot help noticing a powerful diaphragm action and a comfortable, strong feeling of compression.
Inhale through your nose and into your stomach—and you will be stronger.
“Compression, not exhalation”: a Tai Chi master demystifies Power Breathing
The most important thing you need to understand about power breathing is it is not really the breathing, the act of gas exchange between your lungs and the atmosphere that matters in strength amplification. It is the intra-abdominal pressure, or the compression. Breathing, in, out, or holding, is purely incidental to compression.
The martial arts world is not known for clarity of communication, which is why in many schools, students take years and decades to master the concepts they could have nailed in months or even weeks. A notable exception is tai chi master William C. C. Chen, who has some profound yet straightforward things to say about breathing:
“If you punch and exhale, you have no punch, you lose your energy…No professional fighters punch and exhale because they would lose their strength, have no compression and therefore no energy…Compression and making a sound is not exhaling; exhaling is different. Boxers punch and you hear them making the ‘su’ ‘su’ ‘su’ sound. That is not exhaling, that is compression. The difference between exhale and compression is that with compression you close the air valve; it becomes very small…When you exhale you are opening the valve and letting your air go out.”
Do not misunderstand the above as an admonition to never let your air escape on effort! Some air will break through your closed vocal cords as if through a safety valve in a pressure cooker and it is the way you want it. But the exhalation—or rather a very minor blast or air—is supposed to be a side effect of compression, not your intent! Martial artists of different persuasions make all sorts of odd noises, “kiai,” “wha,” “hut,” “sst,” “pft”. The sounds are not the goal to strive for; making these sounds without trying is an indicator of proper compression.
Think of your vocal cords as the nozzle on an air hose. When your vocal cords are relaxed, your air flows out freely, as it does with a passive exhalation, such as a sigh of relief. But when they close, it’s a totally different ballgame. It’s as if you have plugged the end of the hose with your thumb. Suddenly, very little air can escape—with noise—and the pressure inside the hose goes through the roof.
The former event, the glottis/nozzle open, the air flowing freely is what Chen calls exhalation. The latter, the glottis closed, is compression. Are you with me?
Bottom line, the breathing pattern is not as important as the compression or the IAP. In a Russian study the subjects’ strength was compared during three different phases of breath: inhalation, breath holding, and exhalation. In a landmark slap to the Western gym beliefs, the exhalation group showed the lowest scores! The “inhalers” did better and the breath holders kicked everyone’s butt.
The above does not mean that breath holding is the only way to go; there are multiple ways to achieve max compression once you understand power breathing. The point is, do not focus on where the air flows or does not flow; focus on the compression.
Do not focus on where the air flows or does not flow; focus on the compression.
Reverse power breathing: Evolution of the Iron Shirt technique
There are a number of ways to perform compressed breathing. A powerlifter friend of mine has a whole collection of noises that accompany his lifting: pneumatic or hissing, “mechanical” or buzzing, and “animal” or growling and grunting. He favors grunting for the deadlift, buzzing for the bench press, and hissing for curls.
While it may look complicated, it is not. As long as the contents of your stomach are compressed—you are power breathing. How you go about it is your business. And it does not even have to happen on an exhalation.
In my other strength books, I have explained the hissing version of power breathing and “virtual power breathing,” or pretending to hiss but not letting the air come out. I will teach you a different compression technique in this book, reverse power breathing, which evolved from the traditional martial arts reverse breathing.
In my experience as an instructor, this is the quickest way to teach someone to pressurize. Why? Because it is similar to a body function you perform every day: a bowel movement. Forgive this distasteful analogy, but whenever you can recruit an old skill to a new skill, you will learn a lot faster.
Whenever you can recruit an old skill to a new skill, you will learn a lot faster.
First, perform the anal lock. Contract your sphincter beforehand and keep your pelvic diaphragm pulled up whenever you have pressure in your abdomen from exertion. The anal lock is the standard operating procedure in many martial arts. This bizarre technique is vital for health and performance reasons.
Second, pretend that you are straining to have a bowel movement while maintaining the lock. Keep your face impassive. Don’t try too hard the first time; just observe your body. You will notice a compression of your guts and a very powerful, stable feeling in your waist as your diaphragm anchors your torso. Your abdomen will slightly expand and so will your obliques.
It should be obvious that you should not practice reverse power breathing if you have a hernia.
Unless you are under a doctor’s orders, don’t fight the side expansion. It helps your strength, for a number of reasons. Don’t let your stomach bulge, though; form a flat wall instead. Recall that the belly expansion happens as the result of your viscera being displaced by an aggressive diaphragm. The guts have to go somewhere, so they want to spread out and block the view of your shoes. Your abs should stop them.
Stand up. Brace your abs. Send the pressure low, very low, bear down. “Not [to] the upper stomach,” stresses Mas Oyama. “Force it into the groin. Force the air down, down...Force your feet, if you are standing, or your seat, if you are sitting, right through the ground.”
Place your hands on your belly to make sure it stays flat. Brace your abs for a punch—flat and strong. Just don’t mistake tightly flexed abs for a protruding stomach! If your six-pack is well developed, it will stick out somewhat. Your abs will bunch like a flexed bicep.
Lock your sphincter. The late Goju Ru karate master Yamaguchi supposedly got some heavy-duty hemorrhoids for failing to employ the anal lock during his dynamic tension Sanchin kata practice. The powerlifting community has its share of horror stories.
Lock and bear down. “Pack” your lower abdomen full of energy. As your diaphragm is pushing down trying to push out your viscera your abs and company should contain it with a “virtual belt.” Do a couple of back-pressure crunches to refresh the skill of contracting your abdominals in a straight line.
To sum up: Pull up your pelvic diaphragm while bearing down or pushing down with your diaphragm. Contain the internal pressure with a tight midsection.
Go ahead and apply the reverse power breathing technique to the handshake. Your training partner won’t like you!
Pull up your pelvic diaphragm and strain or “bear down” while keeping your stomach tight.
Noticed how you have been breathing while practicing the compression technique? Probably not. Try again. What is it going to be? Have you been exhaling with a grunt? Or breathing shallow? Holding your breath? Or even inhaling on exertion? Which one is right?—All of the above. Remember the wisdom of William C. C. Chen: It is not the breathing but the compression that matters. Take care of the latter and the former will take care of itself.
But no matter how you breathe, remember two rules. First, if you choose to hold your breath, don’t hold it longer than a couple of seconds. You can breathe shallow while staying tight for long exertions, such as isometric and dynamic isometric drills.
Second, don’t take in too much or too little air. As Russian martial arts strength and conditioning expert V. N. Popenko has said, “A person must never have too much or too little air in his lungs.” Having too much air prevents maximal tensing of the abdominal muscles, and having not enough air is just as bad. “When you exhaust your complete breath, a weak spot occurs,” warned karate master Kanbun Uechi.
Oriental martial arts masters generally believe that you are at your strongest when you have expelled half of the air from your lungs. Russian research has found 75 percent to be ideal for strength. You don’t need to worry about exact percentages. Just remember never to exhale or inhale all the way.
Never exhale or inhale all the way.
Power up from the core, or the “pneumatics of Chi”
Russian military hand-to-hand combat instructors emphasize two important principles of power generation: “summation” and “wave”. Both refer to the skill of initiating an effort from the core of the body and then dynamically passing it along to the striking limb while adding force from every muscle along the way.
If any muscle along the power route fails to kick in, you have a “power leakage,” in the words of Steve Baccari, RKC, a co-author of the Power Behind the Punch video. When that happens, your strength goes down the drain. That’s as true for doing a one-arm pushup as it is in the boxing ring.
Whenever you exert yourself, always start tensing in your lower abdomen. Then send that tension outward to be amplified by the tension of the muscles closer and closer to the periphery.
Visualize how you are sending the pressure built up by the modified reverse breath along from your torso to your limbs, as if you are powered by pneumatics or hydraulics.
Imagine that your leg or arm is a long, thin balloon—the kind that clowns tie into knots to make animals. When you are at the bottom of the pistol or the one-arm pushup, the “balloon” is bent. “Blow it up” and it will straighten out.
Direct the “air,” or the energy that’s compressed in your abdomen, with a modified reverse breath, pushing it into the “balloon.” The “balloon” will straighten out under pressure.
When performing the pistol, direct the compressed energy down your hip and leg all the way into the ground, where you generate a static stomp.
When performing the one-arm pushup, send the energy along your oblique and ribs, into your armpit, and then along your arm into your hand.
“The great power of the hips is concentrated and transmitted like chain lightning through the chest, shoulder, upper arm and forearm to the attacking surface of the fist,” as Nakayama put it.
Make sure that the “balloon” reaches high enough to overlap your hip joint when doing the pistol and your shoulder joint when doing the one-arm pushup. You won’t get very far with knee or elbow extension alone. Most power is generated closer to the core: the glutes in the pistol, the lats and pecs in the pushup.
Imagine that your arm or leg is a balloon that starts in your lower abdomen. When you are in the bottom position of the pistol or the one-arm pushup, the “balloon” has two kinks in it: at the hip and the knee and at the shoulder and the elbow, respectively. Direct the “air,” or the energy that’s compressed in your abdomen, with a modified reverse breath, pushing it into the “balloon.” The “balloon” will straighten out under pressure.
I cannot overestimate the importance of proper breathing in power generation, be it in the gym or in the ring. You might find this a frustrating learning experience at times, but once you finally do get it you will have an awesome revelation of superpower.
“Fail to master breath control and you can do nothing in karate except possibly a few cute tricks,” stated the late great Mas Oyama. Strength training is no different.
“Fail to master breath control and you can do nothing.”
