Barbell training the voice?

[Bestafter60]

Exploratory question: in today's WSJ there is an article about how the voice ages (men's become shrill, women's voices lower, both lose volume and endurance); and the options available for maintenance or prevention of this deterioration. Your Voice Can Get Old, Too Your Voice Can Get Old, Too - WSJ.

Seems the vocal cords act like other muscles and sag due to aging and lack of use, which causes gaps between the cords, and consequent deterioration of the voice. Naturally some companies are making drugs to fix this. Alternatively, there are exercises that can help you maintain a youthful voice, like repeatedly saying "ah" in a strong voice while raising or lowering the pitch.*

Now the question: wouldn't the Valsalva maneuver, or*grunting loudly on the third work set*qualify as exercise of the vocal cords and hence serve in similar fashion to keep the voice young?*

[Mark Rippetoe]

I would guess that it does, but I don't know. We'll ask the board.

[Charles Jenkins]

Next time the gym attendant gets onto me for noise, I'll just tell her I'm training my vocal cords.

[George Christiansen]

The Valsalva maneuver can help with projection and sustain, but it will not necessarily affect pitch or range except indirectly through better projection and sustain.

There is a sense in which you can certainly use some of the principles of incremental increases and even, to an extent, the stress-recovery-adaptation model to develop a vocal routine to expand your singing abilities, but using lifting to get there is like riding a bike to improve your squat. It works...sort of...and not very much or for for very long.

[anniemichael]

There is a sense in which you can certainly use some of the principles of incremental increases and even, to an extent, the stress-recovery-adaptation model to develop a vocal routine to expand your singing abilities

This. The principles are the same, but you need specific exercises that will apply stress in the right way. I went from being a shitty singer to a kind of okay singer in the last two years through some specific, weekly vocal training. Article was behind a paywall, so I don't know what they recommend, but endurance was one of the key variable for me (i.e. singing basically non-stop for longer and longer periods of time -- up to an hour or two sometimes). Of note: this training was "coached" by someone highly skilled and experienced.

That said (and again, didn't read the article), I would hazard a guess that lung capacity and the ability to use the entire abdomen to "support" breath would also be beneficial as far as "anti-aging," and those abilities are certainly trainable with Valsalva.

[Bestafter60]

The Valsalva maneuver can help with projection and sustain, but it will not necessarily affect pitch or range except indirectly through better projection and sustain.

There is a sense in which you can certainly use some of the principles of incremental increases and even, to an extent, the stress-recovery-adaptation model to develop a vocal routine to expand your singing abilities, but using lifting to get there is like riding a bike to improve your squat. It works...sort of...and not very much or for for very long.

Damn, was hoping a 3x improvement in squat strength would lead to becoming the next American Idol!
On the serious side, I'm as guilty as many others of trying to get my peers and my spouse involved in weight training. The purpose of the question was to uncover "one more good reason" for barbell training, especially for us elderly types.
Anybody notice any qualitative voice changes that you attribute to weight training?

[Mark Rippetoe]

One of the well-identified effects of aging is the reduction in vocal quality. As you age, it shows up first when you're sick or fatigued, and then progresses further. I think it may be related to control of the air column, both at the vocal cords and from the diaphragm/costal muscles that create the pressure. But I don't know anything more than that the phenomenon is well documented.

[Scaldrew]

One of the well-identified effects of aging is the reduction in vocal quality. As you age, it shows up first when you're sick or fatigued, and then progresses further. I think it may be related to control of the air column, both at the vocal cords and from the diaphragm/costal muscles that create the pressure. But I don't know anything more than that the phenomenon is well documented.

Kind of like with strength, no? Lose it if you don't use it. Vocal chords etc are muscles, so wear and tear will show if you're not doing more to keep them "in shape". Older people have to work harder and do more to get similar to slightly less results than younger people doing less work. Older people also need to consume more protein to absorb the necessary amount, no? The general population is probably protein-starved as it is, so older people slowly losing the physical capacity to speak seems to me to make sense in the same context as older people slowly losing the physical capacity to walk or squat 3 plates (but mostly walk).

Would be an interest enquiry for a linguist to undertake, but, sadly, they only care about corpora and tree diagrams... Fruitcakes...

[ecnatsissa]

One of the well-identified effects of aging is the reduction in vocal quality. As you age, it shows up first when you're sick or fatigued, and then progresses further. I think it may be related to control of the air column, both at the vocal cords and from the diaphragm/costal muscles that create the pressure. But I don't know anything more than that the phenomenon is well documented.

The next time someone comes up to me and espouses this as if it's some ironclad rule of life, I'm gonna kill him.

[David A. Rowe]

I was a vocal performance major before joining the Marines. Not only has it given me a better understanding for maintaining proper and natural thoracic cavity posture, I also learned how to sing and yell louder without damaging my vocal cords. I would guess that most of the degradation of voice quality before a certain age comes from yelling/singing incorrectly (from the throat) causing scar tissue to build up.