Squat form check

[AndrewLewis]

If I did what you suggested I would probably black out and die

What are your work sets?

This week was
benching for 300lb, 5 sets of 3,
squatting 390lb, 5 sets of 3,
deadlift 475lb, a set of 3,
press 172.5lb, 3 sets of 5

Why do you want to know my work sets?

If you're going to black out, then don't do it. I'm not saying you have to hold your breath the entire time. It's just better to do it that way if you can get away with it, especially in the press and bench press.
Just based on OP's speed, he can get away with breathing less if he wants to maintain the tension better. If he wants to breathe each rep, that's fine too, but I think it's poor advice to specifically say that he SHOULD breathe each rep.

[Alexander Rix]

There's a difference between squatting 185 with 1 breath versus 390. That being said, I misread your comment. I thought you squatted using only one breath. I typically use half breaths when I bench to top things off since breathing out has a tendency to collapse the arch.

I think we are going to disagree here about the right course of action. Once the weight gets heavy people have to take breaths between reps and reset their back/chest a little bit. In my view, learning to lift that way to begin with help keeps the reps clean now, and when the weight gets
heavy you are going to have to do it anyway.


Of course, the morale of the story is there isn't enough weight on the bar.