Fighter pilots do it. Why don't you? - We Are The Mighty

Breathe and brace, lift, exhale.

That’s it, pretty freakin’ simple. Why then do so many people literally forget how to breathe when lifting? It’s involuntary. You would die without sweet, sweet oxygen pouring into your face holes constantly.

When you are about to squat 2x your body weight, or even just your body weight, the number one risk to injury is structural damage, be that muscular or skeletal. The most efficient way to prevent injury from occurring is to brace and contract all non-moving body parts. It’s called the Valsalva maneuver.

Other approaches to breathing
Common other breathing methods such as exhaling on the concentric and inhale on the eccentric are problematic for lifting heavy weights.

In order to inhale or exhale, we need to engage the diaphragm and other breathing muscles to draw in air or release it. This means that the body needs to do two separate things while lifting; breath and lift.

This is problematic for a few reasons.