Lightheaded After High Rep Squats

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

Basically, I’ve been feeling light headed after high rep squats for a while. I’ve been doing a lot of 4x8 workouts, and after almost every set of 8 I feel lightheaded and faint. If I wait about 5 minutes, it totally clears up, and I can squat again feeling good as new. I also feel super out of breath after high rep sets, and my heart rate stays elevated for a few minutes. I figure that’s related to the lightheadedness. This sometimes happens with deadlifts, but to a lesser extent. Interestingly enough, I can easily do 3x10 front squats with a lighter weight resting 60 seconds without this feeling (I do “bodybuilder reps” on these maybe that makes a difference).

A bit of background history about me: I very recently started doing any form of conditioning, primarily to try to combat this lightheadedness. 3 years ago, I was 120lbs, now I’m 160lbs (I’m 17 years old btw).

I’ve been drinking a litre of Gatorade powder during all my workouts for the past while. I think it helps, I’m not entirely sure.

All this being said, I think that the only effect this has on my training is that I feel really dead after each set and need to rest longer. If anyone has any advice for me, I’d appreciate it.

2

I thought that meant you were doing it right. On heavy lifts or real hard lifts I usually see stars for a minute or so after I set the weight down. Pretty much weighting to pass out

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3

You get used to it. Try to get your rests shorter and shorter.

4

Eh sounds good. I’ll get used to it.

5

Your blood pressure goes way up during exertion then drops, but the blood vessels take a couple of moments (sometimes minutes) to accommodate.

6

Sounds like your conditioning is just poor. Just do 2-3 5-10 minute finishers per week. It’ll make a big difference. Push a sled if you can. After a while weight training won’t feel like cardio at all.

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7

Learn to breath better. But basically yeah you just got to get used to it.

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8

I think it has to do with the holding the bar on your back, it make it harder to get enough air or something. It’s even worse with a SSB.

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Can you expand on this a bit please?

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Just make sure you’re bracing correctly ( check out kabuki videos ) and then pay attention to how you’re breathing during the set. Are you holding for 6 reps, then breathing for the last two? Are you bracing super hard like for a max effort?

For reps you have to find a middle ground between tightness and breathability. You should be tight, but not so clenched that you can’t take in more air when needed.

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11

Thank you for the response. I let go of my brace and get a new one at the start of each rep. I try to brace hard, almost as hard as the way I would on a single. On higher rep sets, I let the breath go once I’m 90% to the top. I learned how to brace from Brian Alshrue and Kabuki.

What do you mean by this? I assume you don’t mean taking more air in the middle of a rep.

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If you’re letting go of the brace you end up throwing off your positioning. You can never get as much as as you can before you unrack.

That said you can control how tight you are through each rep so that you’re able to conserve more air/energy and breath in as much as you can.

If you’re bracing as hard as you can, then that means you’re putting in maximum effort, which can’t be properly sustained the entire time.

Try bracing about 85-90% as hard and see if that helps.

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Thank you, I’ll give this a go