First of all, thank you for all of the content you put out and your saintlike patience in answering all of our, undoubtedly not so nuanced questions. You guys made me finally realise that in order to get strong I need to stop messing around and pick up a barbell.
Flattery aside, I do have a question. I finally persuaded my boyfriend to start lifting and so far he has been having good progress on the SSLP managing to add weight every session. However as he began approaching higher weights allergy season started. This started being a problem on the Squat and Deadlift especially. After about 3 reps he starts feeling lightheaded and needs to rack the weight due to not being able to breathe properly. Besically the more exertion he needs to put into lifting the sooner he feels like he is about to faint while according to him he could handle much higher weights. I also suspect his breathing/bracing while lifting is not ideal but I don’t have the experience to be able to tell for sure.
He is taking medication and it takes care of most of his symptoms, apart from the clogged nose. The meds also make him a bit drowsy which obviously isn’t realy helping.
Are there any recommendations you could give for lifters like him running through the LP?
Is a program modification, for example, 5 sets of 3 on the squat and 2 sets of 3 on the deadlift a good idea? Or should he just focus on learning how to brace and manage his breathing?
Loratadine 10mg, i believe one pill a day. He also uses a Medinose anti allergy device…
His phyiscian perscribed him medicie with corticosteroids as an alternative but he is adamant about avoiding those and would rather deal with the symptoms.
Intranasal corticosteroid sprays are the first line treatment for these symptoms, and do not pose a health risk or side effects due to the steroid content (i.e., there are little to no systemic side effects like you’d get from taking prednisone). Other (inferior) options to discuss with your doctor would be something like Montelukast or intranasal ipratropium.
I would recommend proper treatment over programming changes, based on the apparent severity of his symptoms.
It might have been a placebo, but using a Neti pot to help clear out my sinuses helped me a great deal. The first few times suck, but you quickly learn how to do it and get comfortable.
while i’m far from being a doctor, i see two possible scenarios:
Is he trying to hold his breath for the entire set? If so, it might help to do something as simple as stopping at the top of each rep to take a breath (while ensuring he’s performing the valsalva maneuver correctly during the rep). I remember Alan Thrall once saying that he would get headaches from trying to hold his breath through too many reps.
Are the allergies causing him to feel wheezy in his lungs and causing him to cough when he exerts himself? If so, i recommend he ask his doctor about “exercise induced asthma”. I have an inhaler for occasional use when this type of shortness of breath happens to me. I never need to use it when lifting though, its more for cardiovascular. My son also had an inhaler to use only when he ran track.
