Did I have my belt too tight?

[stef]

You can create pressure above and/or below the closed glottis. You can deliberately test one then the other right now to feel and see the difference. They are completely independent, but some people create pressure on both sides as they attempt to create maximal pressure to stabilize movement. It can take some practice to unlearn if you've developed the habit.

Valsalva maneuver | definition of Valsalva maneuver by Medical dictionary

[MartinB]

You can create pressure above and/or below the closed glottis. You can deliberately test one then the other right now to feel and see the difference. They are completely independent, but some people create pressure on both sides as they attempt to create maximal pressure to stabilize movement. It can take some practice to unlearn if you've developed the habit.

Valsalva maneuver | definition of Valsalva maneuver by Medical dictionary

"The Valsalva maneuver is performed by attempting to forcibly exhale while keeping the mouth and nose closed." (from the link)

I think the source is either wrong or there have been a revision which created multiples ways to perform a Valsalva. Last time I checked the Valsalva maneuver was defined as "Attempting to exhale forcefully against a closed glottis". If the glottis is closed it doesn't matter if the mouth and/or nose is closed or open. You can test this right now.

[Theseahawk]

So I did my single set of 188.5 kg for 5 reps yesterday. Rep 1 was "overwhelmingly deep", as reported by my gym buddy (girlfriend), and this rep did not cause any issue with the face pressure thing. Reps 2,3 and 4 were below "clearly below parallel by a couple of inches" and caused no problems. Rep 5 was also "clearly below parallel by a couple of inches", but something was different about it; I got the face pressure thing and the sore behind the yes feeling- my lower back rounded a bit and the rep was a limit rep. I tried to reflect was was different, and it may have been a failure to lock in the abs tight after the breath. I remember feeling my gut pushing out hard against the belt and felt the pressure move past my glottis into my mouth (maybe- its really hard to tell whats going on during the rep). But i think the gut pushing out into the belt was an attempt to recover better lifting mechanics after the lower back rounded and I think this was the cause of the mismanagement of the valslava.

[neilc1]

try this,
open your mouth, part your lips, ever so slightly, while holding your valsalva,
Mine hardly shows in videos, but I feel my lips and mouth open, and the huf of air at the top of my chest, or neck,
do it right now reading this,
you'll feel your throut or upper chest or whatever clench up,
that's your valsalava,

there is a video I'll try and find of a girl doing this, mouth wide open,
the comments were something to the affect of "she's breathing thru the rep"
no, she isn't,
she's holding her huff at her neck, not in her mouth,

valsalavasa ava delada

[Theseahawk]

try this,
open your mouth, part your lips, ever so slightly, while holding your valsalva,
Mine hardly shows in videos, but I feel my lips and mouth open, and the huf of air at the top of my chest, or neck,
do it right now reading this,
you'll feel your throut or upper chest or whatever clench up,
that's your valsalava,

there is a video I'll try and find of a girl doing this, mouth wide open,
the comments were something to the affect of "she's breathing thru the rep"
no, she isn't,
she's holding her huff at her neck, not in her mouth,

valsalavasa ava delada

Thanks, I think I've worked out the difference now between holding the breath at the glottis as I must have done during reps 1-4 and behind the teeth as I think I did on rep 5. With the latter, releasing the pressure throuogh the teeth produces a Tss sound like in the Chinese sound Tsing. Whereas releasing the pressure when its held at the glottis produces a throat sound.

I'm happy now there is definitely a difference and that I am to not let the pressure get to the mouth. Its just working out why I've let this happen when I haven't in the past. I think its the way I was interacting with the belt and will focus on squeezing the abs which I think I did during reps 1-4 and not pushing the belly into it which I think is what I ended up doing during rep 5 in an attempt to get the back straightened- doing this lost control of holding the breath at the glottis and the pressure went behind my teeth an caused the head about to explode/sore eyes thing.

[Theseahawk]

So, I thought I was happy with solving this problem, then on Fridays intensity day I did a single set of squats of 202.5 kg x 3 with the belt with pressure defineltly held at the glottis and not at the mouth (mouth and teeth open) and got the worst face pressure so far (eyes sore, burst capillaries).

So on the following Monday volume day I did 5x5 Squats with 182.5 kg and noticed on set 1 that the point of change from no face pressure to face pressure is at the sticking point, and at this point I purposely released a small amount of breath and it prevented the excess face pressure. So this made me think after all it was in fact "over breathing" or the "goofy big breath". On set 2 I took less breath and the set was free from face pressure without releasing my breath at the sticking point.

This second set was more difficult to get out the bottom position though, so for sets 3, 4 and 5 I reintroduced the goofy big breath and released a small amount at the sticking point and I had no problems with sore eyes and things bursting, so I am happy that I will continue with this breathing technique for my squats from now on.

Thanks to everyone for replying, it definitely helped fix the problem.