How to improve your breath hold for surfing

How can a freediver hold his breath for 22 minutes? Can surfers adopt the same technique? Here's a quick guide to boosting your breathing power.

It's all in your lungs. Breathing exercises to increase lung capacity are not a myth, but you'll hold your breath longer without a clock stressing your brain. Therefore, dry training is the best to start improving your breath hold.

Although you might not believe it, you can rapidly learn how to hold your breath for five minutes. Take it step-by-step. One of the secrets is to keep muscles ultra relaxed and quiet so that they don't waste oxygen.

There are many advantages to improving your breath hold. Breathing longer means being able to challenge two- to three-wave hold downs, and giant waves closing out in front of your eyes.

So, here's a simple program to holding your breath for long periods of time:

1. Start breathing slowly for 60 seconds.
2. Take a deep breath in, then exhale everything.
3. Take a really deep breath in, and hold your breath.
4. Relax
5. When you reach your limit, inhale deeply and recover.

Repeat the process a few times, and you'll notice that your breath hold extends as weeks go by. In a month, you'll be able to improve your breathing significantly, more or less according to the following pattern:

Before vs. After

≤ 60 seconds | 180 seconds
+- 90 seconds | 240 seconds
≥ 120 seconds | 300 seconds

The three most important things when training your breathing system: relaxation of the muscles, relaxation of the mind and relaxation of the breath. Remember that you should not push your limits just because you feel you have to do it. Progress slowly, and comfortably.

There are several breath hold training tables available online. They will help you increase the ability to withstand high levels of CO2, and increase the ability to withstand lower levels of O2.

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