Science of holding your breath

golok

golok

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Oct 20, 2000
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I always wonder how some free divers can hold their breath for up to four or five minutes in water as deep as 60 meters.

Apparently, the technique of holding breath can be taught. The methods are meditation, hypnosis and visualization. And then, there's also the art of absorbing air deep into every available air pocket in the body.

The normal time for an ordinary person to hold his breath under water is about two minutes.

Just wondering if one can equate the length of holding breath to stamina, or are they separate?
 
I figure they are directly related. For instance, take a fireman who's lungs are damaged by smoke in a fire. Prior to the damage, his stamina was equal to the task of fighting fires in the mtns. at high elevations. His training involved intensive weight training and running up to 10 miles per day above an elevation of 7000'. After the damage, he tires from walking up a flight of stairs at sea level. As stamina is the bodies ability to function on the available oxygen supply being fed to it, when you run out of air, your stamina is reduced to zero.
 
If I remember my biology lessons correctly you cant change your lungs ?vital capacity as this is genetic. All you can do is increase the efficiency of the lungs functioning (?O2 absorption rate). That lady freediver who broke the world record held by men is a good example of training. I think she surfaced, without air, from approx 500ft.
 
It is important to understand that it is not only a matter of taking a deep breath and holding it, but also how you can manage the consumption of oxygen in order to make it last for longer.

A freediver can train holding his breath at 20cm depth in a pool, but he cannot do the same time when actually diving deep, where he has to work his muscles in order to dive.
A good freediver learns to be as calm as possible during his dive.

If you want a quick experiment, try holding your breath while lying on the couch, and then try to do the same while climbing stairs.
 
If you compare breath holding ability and cariovascular endurance (stamina) there is some overlapping physical adaptations but they are not one and the same.

Studies have been done on deep freedivers and breath-holding competitiors and they have actually seen some deep muscle adaptations that have perviously only been seen in seals and dolphins.

Freedivers do a moderate amount of cariovascular training, but by far the biggest amount of work they do outside of the water is yoga and meditation. So that they can voluntarily control their stress reactions and slow down the metabolic rate.

Performance at altitude has a similiar loose relationship with aerobic 'fitness'. It helps to have some stamina but those who perform well at altitude have an extra factor that one cannot train for. There are plenty of superfit triathletes and marathon runners who fail miserably when they get into thin air.
 
Holding your breath for longer periods is absolutely a skill that can be taught. I know, because about 15 years ago I had planned to do some diving, and in preparation I just started practicing holding my breath once or twice a day, just sitting at my desk at work. At the time I thought most of my gains were just due to learning to relax, but if that were true, I'd still be able to do it today even though I haven't practiced.

I don't remember the exact gain, but I think I went from around a max of 40 seconds to just over two minutes (I'm thinking I was around 2min 30 seconds but that might be a tad high), and that was about a month or two of just practicing once or twice daily.

Obviously, 150 seconds sitting at your desk is nothing like 150 seconds in a free dive where you're actually using energy and the environment is much more stressful. But, the fact remains it didn't take much practice or dedication to get a few hundred percent improvement.

Joe
 
You can train yourself to hold your breath longer by taking shorter gulps of air into your lungs and then taking a deep breath and hold it. This helps to oxigenate your blood enableing you to hold longer. You only use the top third of your lungs to breathe with so there is room to expand.
 
Fred,
If by taking short gulps you are refering to hyperventilating you are actually doing more than hyperoxygenating your cells you are blowing of excess CO2. CO2 build up is what triggers the need to breathe.
Tom
 
Do a search on "buteyko breathing" and see if you find any of it interesting. It might be relevant to your question.
 
Fred- no offense meant here, but this is coming from a respiratory therapist- you don't only use the top third of your lungs to breathe; what's the rest of your lung doing, just globs of lung tissue sitting there with nothing to do? You have three lobes in the right lung, two lobes in the left lung- you use them all. You might be thinking of the ventilation/perfusion ratio, which definitely shows a difference in blood flow to different areas of the lungs...if you have a "dead" area of lung tissue and it's not being used, you would survive fine, your spirometry values will decrease, but you'd be okay. But, if there were areas that just weren't being used, something's not right.
 
Hey ... a topic I can chuck my 2 cents in on.
I freedive/spearfish about twice a week and have been doing it since I was about 4 years old (now 37)
There are exercises you can do and even gadgets for exercising with, sorta like blowing up a balloon which is the next best thing anyway I recon.
First I have found that just taking a deep breath and holding it for about 30 seconds a few times a day is a good start.
When i'm freediving and want to sit at 20 foot to wait for a nice fish shot then I will deep breathe on the surface for about 20 breaths (a form of hyperventilating that should only be done if you have trained) and also concentrating on relaxing using as little energy as possible to get to the bottom. This form of preperation I have found to almost double your bottom time.
The term used for holding your breath under water I believe is "static apnea".
What I have written is not really studied, just what I do and I am open for improvements :)
 
I can relate a little pre-post test of my own. I did two trips to the North Coast of bali, one year apart. We snorkel/freedive each morning off the beach where I was staying. The small village I stay at has a WW2 cargo ship wreck just 20 metres off the beach. It's hard to believe it's there until you swim out.

On the first trip I was lean and mean, about 10% body fat and had been running, racing triathlons and mountain biking. As fit as ever. I noticed that despite this I struggled to stay down for long and felt quite acute distress with the desire to breathe.

12 months later I was back in the same place again. I had gained perhaps 3-4kg's (about 10 pounds) having burnt out on training hard and my only exercise had been Yoga a couple of times per week. I was amazed at how long I could stay on the bottom and how relaxed I was, seeming to return to the surface to breathe out of choice. It felt like scuba diving in comparison to the year before.

The control over my breathing and state of anxiety as well as the improved ability to relax did more for my breath holding than the high amount of aerobic training.
 
TK, Kelt, what Dartanyon is saying is what I was talking about deep breathing to oxigenate the blood first.
 
One has to be VERY careful with hyperventilating before freediving though.

As "dartanyon" already pointed out, this can be pretty dangerous. The rising amount of CO2 in your blood is what makes the urge to breathe. If you hyperventilate before the dive your CO2 concentration is very low and you can hold your breath longer - but unfortunately the transition from "I'm fine" > "I need to breathe" > "I'm unconscious" :) becomes a lot shorter as well.

It's ok when you're trained but this can kill you when you're not.

-Connor
 
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