Why Cardiorespiratory Training is Important for Singers: How Hip Hop Changed My Life

I’ve always been a pretty active person. Mostly dance, from being part of a Slavic Dance Ensemble as a teenager to being a principal dancer in a few regional musicals in my twenties. Even into my 30s and 40s I was still taking ballet, tap and jazz dance classes, up to four a week. By most accounts I would have been considered fit. Then I decided to add to my repertoire with a hip hop class. I must have been about 38 years old then. Why start hip hop at that stage in my life? First of all, I’m a big believer in that it’s never too late to try something new. My daughter was taking hip hop, it looked like a lot of fun, they were starting up adult hip hop classes at her studio and the instructor was someone I had wanted to work with for a long time. I was very excited for it! Then came the first class. I swear I felt like I was going to have a heart attack then and there. None of the classes I had ever taken had made me work this hard! At that moment I decided that if I was going to succeed in this class I needed to make a plan that would include some serious cardiorespiratory training.

Now you’re probably wondering how this can be if I was already dancing so much. If you have never taken a dance class, you need to understand that the average dance class is a lot of stop and start as you are shown different steps or waiting for other dancers to cross the floor before your turn. Now your next question is probably how does this all relate to singing?

My cardiorespiratory training started out with some running and eventually led to triathlon, which is another story. During this time I noticed some amazing things happening in my voice. I developed a lot more power and control. Long phrases became effortless. My high notes where much freer. As a well-trained classical singer, I really didn’t expect this level of improvement.

Physiologically, there are a number of things that happened to account for this. One thing to note is that lung capacity is relatively constant. It is dependant on body size (i.e. skeletal size), age and gender. Exercise will not make any substantial changes to this.  Rather what happens is an improvement in cardiac output. A stronger heart means that more blood volume is pumped through leading to an improved ability to extract oxygen from the lungs and expel carbon dioxide. More oxygen in the blood will allow for the breath to be slowly expelled over a longer period of time before the need for another inhalation. This will account for the capability to maintain longer phrases.

Strength and endurance of inhalation muscles improves with training. For deep inhalation the muscles used include the external intercostals (between the ribs), pectoralis major and minor (chest) and trapezius and serratus anterior (back muscles). These muscles are very important to develop for singing to keep the ribcage lifted on expiration. The sternocleidomastoids (neck muscles) can also be involved in forced inhalation, but we avoid using them for singing due to the throat tension they cause.


Muscles of exhalation include the internal intercostals (antagonists to the external intercostals), and abdominal muscles: external obliques, internal obliques, transverse abdominus and rectus abdominus. By controlled contraction of these muscles (which are also strengthened through cardiorespiratory training) we can create greater pressure in the thorax (ribcage), allowing the diaphragm’s rise (relaxation) to be more carefully controlled. Usually there is less control in relaxation, but by having this control we are able to have more control of phonation.

So how do you know if you are working out hard enough to get these benefits? This will depend on your current level of fitness, but if you go by perceived exertion you should be working somewhat hard. You should be breathing hard, but be able to carry on a labored conversation. This should be maintained for a minimum of 20 minutes.  As with any workout don’t forget to warm-up, cool-down and stretch. If you would like more information about what to do or would like start on your fitness journey by joining The Vibrant Body Vibrant Voice Club click here.