Strength Training for Singers: Breathe

I started my strength training journey in the Spring of 2009 in hopes to better my singing. At that time, I was working on my masters degree in vocal performance at Ithaca College. During this time I told myself, “Well, if I want to be a physically stronger singer then I need to be stronger physically.” I quickly learned that stronger muscles meant better posture which also meant better breath support. Body awareness and confidence moving my body through space were also enhanced when I dedicated myself to a consistent training schedule.

A few weeks ago, I was speaking with my Weightlifting coach, Sean Waxman, about how weightlifters breathe. He mentioned that he has a theory that opera singers breathe much like how a weightlifter should. I told him, “Well, I also have that theory.” I admit, it has been a while since I’ve thought about the connection between weightlifting and singing when dealing with the breath but since that conversation, I have been dwelling on the thought more and more.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to do a little experiment during my lifting and think about the “appoggio” during my jerk set up. I realize I’m mixing singer terminology with weightlifting so I’ll clarify. “Appoggio” is an Italian term we use in singing meaning “to lean on”. This describes the sensation felt in the chest cavity once you’ve drawn the breath to sing. While the breath is released during singing, the ribs are buoyant, the chest is lifted and not collapsing, and the air preassure is maintaining the “lean on” sensation. Now, the weightlifting component to this, the jerk is the second half of the lift in the “clean and jerk.” To complete a jerk, the athlete must bring the barbell from the shoulders to overhead in one fluid motion. This occurs after the clean once the athlete shows control of the barbell while in a standing position.

So, the reason behind why I thought I needed to test this experiment is because during 2021 I had a real come to Jesus moment in my jerk. It was rough. It was ROUGH ROUGH. I switched which foot I split with, I did power jerk for a few competitions, I switched my feet back.. it was a mess. So in all my trial and error of foot work and what I call “push and pray”, I became so self-conscious that I would consistently miss the lift BEHIND me. Since working with Waxman I haven’t had this problem. However, the programming he provides is significantly different from what I had been doing. I believe that helped pull me out of my mental funk.

Anyway, the issues with strength, timing, and confidence in my jerk are still present. After our conversation about understand the breath and how to breathe, I wanted to see if my confidence changed when I approached the jerk set up as if I were about to sing. Now, this isn’t easy to replicate since I have a 100+lb barbell resting on my delts in the front rack position. However, I did find that It allowed me to keep my chest high throughout the initiation of the dip. When I first tested this, I had 3 jerks in a row. By the third jerk I was pushing my shoulders up into the barbell. Now, I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing. I’m sure it all depends. I wasn’t actively thinking about pushing the bar up with my shoulders, but since I was repeating the motion 3 times and of course becoming tired, that was my body’s way of staying connected to the bar. At least, this is what I’m taking away as my experience. Nonetheless, I believe the use of the appoggio forced me to keep my chest up, therefore raising the delts into the bar, and finally allowing me to have 3 solid jerks in a row. Mind you, I did not re-rack the bar between attempts. The bar returned back to my shoulders after each lock out overhead.

Now, my jerk sets were in 3s and also less than 90%, but I did find my lock out to be fast and stable. I did not notice being off balanced (hurray) but I was so focused on creating the sensation of appoggio to the best of my ability that I didn’t catch all these other nuances in my lift. I also did find that the sensation of continuously pushing the rib cage out was challenging while stablizing a barbell on my shoulders. This isn’t something I’m concerned about since, after all, I’m not about to sing a legato musical phrase to one of Puccini’s most famed arias… I’m about to do a 1 second explosive movement for sport.

There are a number of things I did not pay attention to while I was working through this process and I still have more testing to work through with this idea of using the appoggio on the jerk initiation. It raised some questions like, how does this effect the depth of my dip? or does it effect the dip depth at all? Is my timing in the dip faster, slower, or the same? I currently have difficulty holding in the split position with the weight overhead, will this new approach help improve this?

If you’re a singer looking to weight train, you should consider adding the jerk to your fitness/strength training routine. If you are a singer who already jerks.. WELL let me know what you think about the use of appoggio in your jerk set up. If you’re on the flip side and are a weightlifter, I encourage you to explore the breath in this capacity. I could dive in to an exploration of belly breathing, clavicular breathing, and all the in between. But for now, if you’re finding your breath lacking a sense of fullness, see if you can isolate the sensation to where your lungs actually are. Reminder, your lungs are not in your belly button, they are in the rib cage. What would happen if you create a sensation of breath that is more thoracic and less abdominal? It’s true the abdomen does need to release enough to allow the diaphragm to move, BUT I think the breath settles much higher than we tell ourselves. Still, take care not to gasp for your breath in the throat. That will not serve you either.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on breathing for singing vs. breathing for weightlifting or anything else that deals with how we use our breath. There are infinite ways to approach the breath but depending on your goals I think there are specific advantages to one technique over another.

-Laura