Strength training ears seem to be blocked

The feeling of stuffy ears during strength training is mostly due to transient Eustachian tube dysfunction caused by increased thoracoabdominal pressure caused by holding your breath and imbalance of pressure between the inside and outside of the ear. It usually resolves on its own after resting for 1-10 minutes without leaving permanent damage. Only a few cases of frequent attacks, accompanied by pain or tinnitus require vigilance for pathological problems.

Speaking of this, I am very experienced. When I squatted 200kg for a PR last time, I took a deep breath to hold the bar and my ears started to buzz, like a ball of water-soaked cotton.

In fact, the principle is very simple: when we press heavy weights, we unconsciously do "hold a breath and stretch the core," which is the Valsalva maneuver in sports medicine. It will instantly increase the intrathoracic and abdominal pressure to a very high level. This pressure will be connected along the nasopharynx and middle ear. The Eustachian tube passes through. Originally, the Eustachian tube is responsible for regulating the pressure inside and outside the ear. If the sudden surge of pressure is not released in time, when the internal and external pressures are different, there will be a stuffy feeling like when you are descending on an airplane. Listening to external sounds will make you feel muffled, and your own voice will be amplified.

Some people may ask, does this mean that I am breathing wrong? In fact, the two schools of thought here are quite different. Many fitness bloggers will say that this is the wrong way to hold your breath, and that you should change to "hold half a breath and hold it" or adjust your breathing throughout to avoid too high abdominal pressure. However, we veterans who have been practicing in the powerlifting circle for five or six years basically know that the Valsalva movement, which does not require full breath-holding for heavy compound movements, cannot stabilize the core at all. If you really change your breathing pattern to avoid ear blockage, the risk of lumbar spine injury is much higher. The consensus among sports medicine is also very clear: temporary ear blockage that occasionally occurs after one or two training sessions is completely a normal physiological reaction, and there is no need to be overly anxious as a signal of "movement error". Several athletes around me who compete in competitions will have ear blockage eight out of ten times when they push extreme weights. They have never had any hearing problems after practicing for so many years.

Oh, by the way, a student I coached before was even more exaggerated. He would block his ears if he deadlifted more than 120kg. The most serious one took almost half an hour to recover. He was so scared that he stopped practicing for half a month, thinking that he was going deaf. Later, I taught him to pinch his nose and inflate gently before putting on the weight, and feel his eardrums pop open slightly, or to swallow a few mouthfuls of saliva to open the Eustachian tube before putting on the bar. Later, he rarely had this problem again. For people with allergic rhinitis or chronic pharyngitis, their Eustachian tubes are narrower than ordinary people. Spraying rhinitis medicine to clear the nasal cavity before training can also reduce the probability of blocked ears.

There are situations that we need to be vigilant about. I had a partner who had a blocked ear after doing deadlifts, and he still had bursts of stinging pain. It didn't go away after a day. When I went to the hospital for a checkup, I found out that his otitis media had just recovered and was not cured. He held his breath too hard and caused effusion in the middle ear. I followed the doctor's advice and took a break for two weeks before resuming training. If you still have tinnitus, dizziness, ear canal pain after having your ears blocked, or the feeling of blockage persists for more than 24 hours, don’t force yourself to do it or search Baidu blindly. Go directly to the otolaryngology department to get an otoscope. There is a high probability that the Eustachian tube itself has inflammation, which has little to do with the training itself. Don’t blame all the blame on strength training.

To put it bluntly, most of these strange little reactions during training are normal feedback from the body. Don’t be frightened to stop training because of the slightest trouble, and don’t be so worried that it hurts so much that you push the weight hard. When you are really unsure, go to the hospital and ask a few questions. It is much more reliable than reading two hours of posts on the Internet about "fitness causes diseases".