Your Vocal Journey Questions Answered

Hi Heidi,

I've been taking opera singing lessons as a tenor for a year and a half and recently got admitted into a conservatory. However, I'm also passionate about strength training. I used to go to the gym nearly everyday but I found out it created a lot of tension around my neck and jaw, and it hinders my support as well due to loss of ab  flexibility even after stretching. I've been really struggling to find my vibrato, and even though I've worked a lot on good posture, good support, etc., muscle tension always comes in the way. I made the experiment of taking two days off the gym prior to my conservatory audition and there I've been able to sing with vibrato. Then I took a couple of weeks off the gym and continued to make progress in this regard. Last thing I've tried is incorporating a neck and jaw stretching routine by kinesiologist after the gym, but the tension made its way into my singing practice once again.

My question is: is strength training (i.e, weight lifting and the like) necessarily incompatible with singing? After doing some online research, that seems to be the case. But I've also seen a couple of singers (coincidentally baritones) who are rather muscular, and I wonder if there is way of making these two passions of mine coexist. Training has a very positive effect on my health and emotional well being, so I would like to find a way around this issue. Any thoughts or experience on the matter?

At the moment I'm trying to get a more consistent and less forceful breath flow- I have a bad habit of pushing too much air through my voice. My problem is that when I attempt to use less breath, the tone is much better but I struggle to support as well. Any advice would be appreciated.