“Hi, Claudia! I am an undergraduate tenor in my sophomore year. I have gotten into weightlifting over the past year and have seen some big results. I am worried, however, that I may be passing a point at which I have built too much muscle as a singer. Is there a limit to how muscular a singer should become? I am currently doing exercises like bench press, lat pull-downs, shoulder shrugs, deltoid raises, tricep and bicep work, etc. I avoid doing core work because I feel like that makes me tight when I sing. What are your thoughts on weightlifting for mass as a singer?”
The short answer is that with a targeted strength-training program, it should be possible to build quite a lot of muscle and size with no negative consequences for your singing, and possibly many positive ones.
The longer answer is that you need to develop balance throughout your overall musculature, giving careful consideration to the way the muscles you’re building are likely to interact with the anatomy governing vocal function.
In my December column, I wrote, “Elite athletes are specialists and must maximize strength in specific physical areas while avoiding overdeveloping their bodies in others.” I then described the differences between the way that divers, gymnasts, and sprinters develop musculature to improve their sports performance.
Like other athletes, you have to be mindful of the things you need to cultivate and the things you need to avoid overdeveloping. Most of the things singers need to cultivate—alignment, cardiovascular fitness, and overall stability—can be achieved through a well-rounded fitness program that includes weightlifting.
The main area singers must avoid overdeveloping is the musculature in and around the neck, especially the upper trapezius. If you lay off the shrugs and upright rows and make sure to stabilize your shoulders when you do lat pull-downs, overhead presses, and lateral raises, you’ll be fine.
Without high-level training or instruction, however, recreational weightlifters tend to emphasize aesthetics over functionality and end up creating imbalances that pose problems for singers. These problems commonly include the following:
• Lifting heavy with your lats without adequately stabilizing your shoulders. The upper trapezius gets involved and it creates problems in the area of the icervical spine, right where your larynx lives.
• Building size in your chest without balancing it out with equal work on your back. The resulting imbalance limits range of motion in the muscles associated with the larynx that are anchored in your sternum, creating a number of problems for singing, particularly loss of clarity in your low notes or even the ability to access those notes, period.
• Building up your six pack (rectus abdominis) without balancing it out with strength and size throughout the rest of your core musculature. Core work should yield fabulous results for alignment and breath management—so if the core exercises you’re doing make you feel tight when you sing, it’s an indication that you’re probably hitting some of those muscles hard while neglecting others.
• Valving off your throat to provide leverage for lifting. Known as the valsalva maneuver, this will wreak havoc on your vocal folds and must always be avoided.
I have helped plenty of other people build size, but as this is not one of my own fitness goals, I thought I’d ask the advice of some singers who are also smart bodybuilders: Barihunks Paul LaRosa, Zachary Gordin, and David Adam Moore.
So long as your routine is “full-body and dynamic, you’re all right,” LaRosa says. “It’s when you start isolating muscle groups just to increase mass that you can get into trouble. Concentrate on functional movements that require the transfer of energy across the body—fluid, dynamic, and strong; nothing too tight; everything working together to perform actions that require just as much flexibility as strength.”
Zachary Gordin keeps his focus on his breathing while lifting weights. “Since the core of singing is breath, training your breath mechanics while lifting or doing core work is essential,” Gordin says. “One of the biggest problems I see with people working out is that they don’t have good intention in their breath. They end up holding their breath through several repetitions or doing some form of glottal squeezing/air stopping without decent flow in the core muscles.”
Gordin emphasizes the importance of “exhaling while contracting and inhaling on the negative portion of the repetition, all while maintaining a smooth (but generous) flow in the breath cycle” to ensure that you’re not adding any tension or excess pressure at the glottal level.
To sum things up, you can get as big as you like so long as your regimen is designed to improve and protect your voice. If you pursue a program that promotes balance and functional movement, your instrument will greatly benefit. So take the time to educate yourself about your own biomechanics. One great way to do this would be pursuing a reputable certification as a trainer. You’d then be in a position to train yourself, offer advice to your colleagues, and earn some extra income while you’re still in school.
Hope that helps. Now, drop and gimme 20!
