Note: The reason why I come to this topic is because I consider myself a competitive endurance athlete and the local chubby kids at the pool can hold their breath longer than me… and that pissed me off.
Anyone tried breath holding exercises before? Were you able to improve your breath holding ability a fair amount… enough to beat said local kids at the pool? Did you have any side effects (either positive or negative) such as a stronger diaphram, more effecient breathing, dain bramage?
Holding your breath is mostly about training yourself to withstand higher CO2 concentrations in your blood. Very trainable, unlikely to help your endurance performance.
Oh and being still, the more relaxed and still you are the longer you will last.
Any negative effects of this increase ability to deal with co2? Is this bad for you?
You mean hypoxic swimming? Sure. Why? Cos the coach said so…
Back in the day (middle school, early high schoole) I actually did practice this, and yes absolutely you can improve your performance.
I have no idea if this is of any benefit whatsoever to anything triathlon related.
I have no idea if there are any long term symptoms to the head from depriving the brain of oxygen as I can’t tell whether these were a result of holding my breath or chemical supplements I discovered later in high school.
What time do you need to hit to establish your manhood over the chubby kids at the pool? Maybe you should be taking on the seniors for a while until your ready for the big leagues. Or, if you are only a few seconds off I’m sure a high end aero helmet and lowering your seat would do the trick.
This enormous Cartman lookalike was under the water for 2:40. I came up gasping after about 1:30
2:40, Whoa. I’d stay away from him if I were you. That is some pretty elite breath holding he’s got going on.
Even in my prime I couldn’t touch that. He must be sponsored.
I spent alot of time as a kid at the pool partaking in breathholding contests of one sort or another. Some people are just better at it than others and its not simply a function of who is in better shape. Its all mental, at least until you get to times alot longer than 2-3 minutes. For your basic pool stay under contest, it comes down to who can get themselves most relaxed quickly. A tip I heard once is that once you get to your limit, start exhaling slowly. I don’t know if its true but the reason given was that what makes you want to breath is not the desire for oxygen but that your body wants to get rid of CO2 and by exhaling it satisfies that urge for a bit. It might be total BS but it seemed to work.
I do this at work a lot. I can hold my breath for just over 2 mins. I only do it because I’m that goddamn bored!
There are some drills that you ought to find with Google. Something like:
Do non-stop repetitions of a sequence of
Man, that kid has an aptitude for breathholding if he was close to 3 minutes.
I have read, as others have stated, that the urge to breath is not caused by lack of O2 but by a buildup of CO2 and thus you can extend your breath holding by exhaling.
kobe bryant could only do this for like 30 seconds
i wouldn’t try to train this, could negatively affect performance =)
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You can double your time if you hyperventilate first.
Holding your breath is mostly about training yourself to withstand higher CO2 concentrations in your blood. Very trainable, unlikely to help your endurance performance.
Oh and being still, the more relaxed and still you are the longer you will last.
x2.
The main reason that it is done in swimming is so that when your body gives you that mental scream of “BREATHE YOU IDIOT!!” it isn’t unknown and you still retain control over their actions rather than popping up to breathe.
For triathletes, it can be useful in situations such as coming up to breathe, and getting a faceful of water instead of air, they don’t panic and stop swimming, they just go another stroke and breathe on the other side.
No real performance benefits from hypoxic training.
John
You can double your time if you hyperventilate first.
And greatly increase your risk of shallow water blackout as a bonus.
You can double your time if you hyperventilate first.
And greatly increase your risk of shallow water blackout as a bonus.
The only time I ever did it was out of the water.
That’s a good warning not to try it in the water.
In fact, my local YMCA has instituted a ‘no breath holding’ policy. I keep joking about how they are ordering me to drown. Who ever heard of swimming without holding your breath? 
The Navy put out a policy memo not too long ago saying that hyperventilating before swimming is not allowed in their pools due to the risk of shallow water blackout. Last time I was at a pool on a Navy base I saw a sign but I think it just said no hypoxic swimming or something like that. I suppose the hyperventilation part of it got lost in translation.
Over the course of a week (when I was at university) practicing every night I went from 2.11 to 3.40 (out of water). Mostly it’s training yourself not to look at the time.
There is an entire sport devoted to holding your breath underwater. But it has more to do with how deep you can go. It’s called something like “free diving”. There was a movie called “The Big Blue” about this. One scene was when 2 competitors were drunk and talking trash and they went to the nearest pool and both jumped in to see who would come up first. Good movie…
Perhaps you should challenge them right after all of you do a 1000 yard swim.
There is an entire sport devoted to holding your breath underwater. But it has more to do with how deep you can go. It’s called something like “free diving”. There was a movie called “The Big Blue” about this. One scene was when 2 competitors were drunk and talking trash and they went to the nearest pool and both jumped in to see who would come up first. Good movie…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Blue
Hmmm, I may have to see that.
I’ve been trying to improve my breath holding for when I go spearfishing. Used to be able to hold for ~3 minutes (out of water), now I’m lucky if I can hit :30 out in the ocean.