A man about to perform a bench press at the gym with a barbell. He is holding his breath.

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Does Grunting Really Help You Lift More?

Those noisy lifters might be onto something—but there’s a time and place for the perfect grunt.

By Sarah KleinJanuary 6, 2025

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Walk into a certain kind of gym and you might be met with a chorus—and not the singing kind. Some people, usually when they’re lifting some seriously heavy weights, like to grunt when heaving a loaded barbell overhead or standing up during the perfect deadlift. If you’re new to the lifting scene, it’s natural to wonder what’s going on. Does grunting help you lift more? Is it an involuntary reaction to the exertion? And should you give it a try?

We spoke with a physical therapist and a psychologist who’s researched the topic to understand what’s really going on when people grunt during a workout—plus how it may help you perform better during certain types of physical activity.

Why We Grunt During Some Forms of Exercise

Think about the last time you moved a heavy piece of furniture. As you tried to lift or shove that couch or dresser, you might have noticed you made a little sound. “Grunting can be a natural response, especially if we are doing an activity that requires force,” explains Scott Sinnett, PhD, a psychology professor and faculty athletic representative at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, who has published research on grunting during physical activity. “That extra grunt is really just an exhalation of breath known as a Valsalva maneuver.”

The Valsalva maneuver involves holding your breath, which closes a flap of skin in your throat inside your voice box, explains Anuja Ghate, a physical therapist at Replay PT in New York City. It’s the same type of pause in your breathing that you might experience if you blow up a balloon or even if you’re straining to use the bathroom.

But some people also do it intentionally during exercise. “People hold their breath, and that increases the pressure in the chest cavity,” Ghate says. That pressure increase helps you engage your core, stabilizing your body and in turn powering a heavy lift. “The grunting at the end of the movement is when people are expelling air. The grunt is really the sound that comes after holding the breath,” she explains.

This behavior tends to be more common—and more helpful—in sports and workouts that require short, intense bursts of power or force (aka anaerobic exercise), like weightlifting, tennis, martial arts, baseball, or football, Sinnett says. (More on that below.)

On the other hand, grunting during exercise is less common during longer, steadier efforts. For example, “running would require a more constant level of exertion where grunting would not help, and would probably disrupt breathing in a way that would be detrimental to performance,” he says. 

How you breathe is also important in a practice like yoga. But rather than grunting with exertion, you’ll want “quieter, steadier breathing” to match that steady, lower-intensity output, Ghate says.

A woman lifting a barbell overhead in a gym.

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Does Grunting Help You Lift More?

Grunting might help you lift more in certain situations, but it’s not a quick fix, and the research supporting doing so is preliminary and a bit mixed. “[The Valsalva maneuver] can help you to generate a little more force and power,” Sinnett says. 

His research and other studies back this up: In his 2018 study published in PLOS One, a small group of martial arts students exerted more force when they grunted while kicking a heavy bag than when they kicked without grunting.

This work built on previous research from 2012 in the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology that found martial artists demonstrated greater grip strength when grunting than without a grunt. Research also suggests tennis players serve with greater velocity when they’re permitted to grunt than when they had to stay silent. 

That said, older research from way back in 1999 found a small group of young men did not produce any more force if they grunted while deadlifting compared to when they deadlifted quietly.

We need more and larger studies examining grunting in different types of workouts to truly understand the potential benefits of the practice. But in the meantime, many competitive weightlifters are trained in how to breathe during specific movements to use these early findings to their advantage, Ghate says. They’ll intentionally inhale before the start of the exercise, hold their breath, and exhale, often with a grunt, through the part of the movement requiring the most effort. “Doing that at the ‘best’ time is helpful, because it can generate more power,” she says.

That said, simply adding a grunt to your usual strength training routine isn’t some magical shortcut that will help you suddenly be able to lift a lot more weight than you’re used to. If it were, every competitive lifter would do it, Ghate points out: “If you watch videos of Olympic powerlifters, they don’t all do it. So it’s definitely not a universally used technique, which shows that it’s not so significantly beneficial that everyone’s being coached on doing it.”

Coaching could be key to making grunting beneficial for you, though: A lifting coach or another fitness professional can help you understand how to breathe during heavy lifts and when to exhale or grunt, Ghate says. Peloton instructors who lead strength training classes will often give you breathing cues to follow that can help you begin to understand how to harness your breath to help power movements.

A professional will help you time your grunt correctly so you don’t risk injury: Sometimes people grunt too early in a movement and then are ready to drop their heavy weights before it’s truly safe to do so, Ghate says, which could result in a barbell bouncing off your shins, for example. “You don’t want to grunt, relax your muscles, and disrupt the tension,” she says. “You want to maintain that tension all the way through whatever sequence you need it for.” 

There may also be a mental component that benefits lifters and other athletes who grunt. “There are likely psychological boosts that also help you generate the extra force,” Sinnett says. For example, it might help your mind and muscles sync up and produce more power because you’re more focused, Ghate says. Or, letting out a yell might get you amped up to perform your best, she adds, much like listening to your favorite pump-up song before a heavy lift or tennis match. 

Are There Drawbacks of Grunting During a Workout?

The potential benefits above don’t necessarily mean every lifter should let out more primal screams.

“I'm not advocating for anyone to head out to the gym and start grunting every time they hit the weight room,” Sinnett says. “There are social norms that should be abided by in that kind of environment.” Some gyms explicitly state you shouldn’t grunt during your workouts there. And in other settings, the grunting can feel like it stems from machismo or aims to garner attention more than anything, which may feel isolating and alienating to other gym-goers, Ghate says.

You can generally get a sense of whether or not a gym is a grunt-friendly environment on your first couple of visits, she says. If you’re going to be lifting heavy and want to experiment with grunting, you’ll want to look for a space that supports that behavior. Or, you can find a more private set-up. “If you have a home gym, then by all means go ahead if it helps,” Sinnett says. And if you’re competing, you should feel free to make whatever sounds you want that help you reach your goals, he adds.

Keep safety in mind when you’re grunting: You could hurt yourself if you’re relying on a grunt to help you lift something you’re really not ready for, Ghate says. Take that same example of moving a heavy piece of furniture: If you’re straining to lift a couch and it really won’t budge, simply holding your breath, bracing, and grunting probably won’t be enough to move the furniture and spare your achy shoulder, wobbly knee, or tight low back from injury.

And on the topic of safety, remember that grunting too soon during an exercise could release the tension needed to perform a proper sequence, posing a risk for improper form or injury.

Lastly, grunting may not always be good for your throat: More weightlifters than cardio exercisers say they experience throat pain, hoarseness, and feeling like something is stuck in their throat, according to a small 2020 study in the Journal of Voice. While more research is needed to determine why that may be, it’s possible it could be related to grunting or yelling during heavy lifts.

The Takeaway

Grunting alone won’t necessarily help you lift more weight than you could lift during your last strength training session. But if you’re knowledgeable about when and how to exhale during the hardest part of a specific exercise, you might exert more force and power in the moment if you let out some noise.

Grunting in these moments is the sound of air escaping after you hold your breath to stabilize your body during the exercise, and while much more research is needed, the practice has been linked with better performance in weightlifting, martial arts, and tennis. While grunting isn’t always socially acceptable in every fitness space, it’s generally safe to try if you’re curious. Just do so carefully so it doesn’t make you overconfident in your lifting abilities and more likely to hurt yourself.

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This content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute individualized advice. It is not intended to replace professional medical evaluation, diagnosis, or treatment. Seek the advice of your physician for questions you may have regarding your health or a medical condition. If you are having a medical emergency, call your physician or 911 immediately.

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