what is the secret to a huge breathold?

Bring on the essays, it is fasinating!
Thanx, very very usefull
Belle

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Underwater Hockey Rules!

If reference to Gav's dynamic breathholds --

When I first started working on this I came up with doing a set of 10 slow 25s on a flexible interval, not based on how I felt because I would have stopped doing them after a few if it were based on feeling. I would take whatever amount of time I was underwater, double it and add :10-:25 seconds so that I was leaving on the quarter minute of the pace clock (easier to keep time that way).

Example:
1-- down :25 double it :50 + :10 puts me on the :60
2-- down :32 double it 1:04 + :11 puts me on the :15
3-- down :38 double it 1:16 + :14 puts me on the :45
4-- down :41 double it 1:22 + :23 puts me on the :30
etc

First time I struggled to come close to a minute at the end of the 10th one, eventually I worked up to over 2:30 and then decided to try my first 75 underwater, since age-group swimming 20+ years ago, and it was easy. From start to 75 took me about a month, maybe a month and a half, going 3 times a week.

As with all perceived limits, it's a whole lot easier if you can take your mind off the big picture and just let it happen at whatever pace it takes you. I found this a good way to make the big task easy. It wasn't hard to say I want to stray down :05 longer than the previous one. And I found in my play I started making more 2nd and 3rd efforts.

If reference to Gav's dynamic breathholds --

When I first started working on this I came up with doing a set of 10 slow 25s on a flexible interval, not based on how I felt because I would have stopped doing them after a few if it were based on feeling. I would take whatever amount of time I was underwater, double it and add :10-:25 seconds so that I was leaving on the quarter minute of the pace clock (easier to keep time that way).

Example:
1-- down :25 double it :50 + :10 puts me on the :60
2-- down :32 double it 1:04 + :11 puts me on the :15
3-- down :38 double it 1:16 + :14 puts me on the :45
4-- down :41 double it 1:22 + :23 puts me on the :30
etc

First time I struggled to come close to a minute at the end of the 10th one, eventually I worked up to over 2:30 and then decided to try my first 75 underwater, since age-group swimming 20+ years ago, and it was easy. From start to 75 took me about a month, maybe a month and a half, going 3 times a week.

As with all perceived limits, it's a whole lot easier if you can take your mind off the big picture and just let it happen at whatever pace it takes you. I found this a good way to make the big task easy. It wasn't hard to say I want to stray down :05 longer than the previous one. And I found in my play I started making more 2nd and 3rd efforts.

I won't make this an essay ( I have plenty of other thoughts and info on this topic) but...

The whole premise of altitude training is based upon developing an increased oxygen carrying capacity (through increased levels of heamoglobin) brought on as a response to decreased levels of oxygen.

This can be achieved in a number of ways including the obvious (1) living and training at altitude (2) breathing modified air from a device such as described by Leelee.

Another method of breathing modified air (ie decreased levels of oxygen/increased level of Carbon dioxide) is through a device called a snorkel. Due to the nature of a snorkel when you breath in and out on the surface there is residual exhaled air left in the snorkel each time. This residual air has a higher concentration of carbon doxide therefore a lower level of oxygen. When you breath in you are breathing in a portion of 'fresh' air and a portion of 'exhaled' air.

This has a similar effect as the regime that Atapene tried and a similar effect as breathing at altitude.

Perhaps one of the reasons that Liam experienced little or no effect from the modified air regime is that he was already conditioned to this type of breathing.

I experimented with this type of training many years ago by building a 're-breathing snorkel' for use when training on land (such as stationary cycling, stair-running etc). Essentially it was a SCUBA mouthpiece that was connected to tube in the shape of a standard snorkel (much shorter however) in one direction and the tube coming out of the mouthpiece in the other direction that wrapped around the back of my head and fed itself back into the 'main' snorkel again. That means I was breathing a much higher level of exhaled air than from a standard snorkel. (hmmm... that probably doesn't make much sense to anybody :? )

Anyway, did I have a reasonable breath hold? Yes. Did the re-breathing snorkel work? Don't really know for sure. No real way of measuring it coupled with other training I was doing at the time. A few years later I saw a similar device used by some elite athletes in the USA. So, maybe there was something in it.

There are also plenty of other things to do to improve your dynamic breathhold.

I always knew there was something strange about you Kelly, maybe you were sucking on that exhaled air a bit too much??

I had also giving some thought to the relation altitude training and UWH. I climbed a 6200m (over 20,000ft) peak in Nepal 18 months ago and was worried about alitutude. The main reason I was worried is that I'd never been to altitude, coming from Perth home is about 20m above sea level and a lot of my work is on the ocean at about 1m ASL.

A few weeks before I went away I considered the fact that hockey might be a form of altitude training - stressing the body physically with limited oxygen, much the same as climbing high altitude. I didn't know the physiology behind it but in my mind it sounded plausible.

When I got the the mountains I did get struck down by alitutude sickness and it wasn't good. That was at about 3400m where I had severe headaches, complete loss of apetite, lack of energy, nausea which lead to vomitting, etc. I really wondered what I was doing there and just wanted to curl up in a ball and die.

After a couple of days I managed to adjust and got over all the symptoms and started to feel good. When we went for the summit I felt fantastic and was handling the conditions as well as our Sherpas. I didn't feel any lack of oxygen, shortness of breath or any of the other problems that all the other Westerners were struggling with. They all couldn't beleive that I wasn't struggling like they were. Coming back down I was keeping pace easliy with the lead Sherpas. It was a good feeling.

I put a lot of that down to hockey, it must have done me some good at least! :lol:

I always knew there was something strange about you Kelly, maybe you were sucking on that exhaled air a bit too much??

I had also giving some thought to the relation altitude training and UWH. I climbed a 6200m (over 20,000ft) peak in Nepal 18 months ago and was worried about alitutude. The main reason I was worried is that I'd never been to altitude, coming from Perth home is about 20m above sea level and a lot of my work is on the ocean at about 1m ASL.

A few weeks before I went away I considered the fact that hockey might be a form of altitude training - stressing the body physically with limited oxygen, much the same as climbing high altitude. I didn't know the physiology behind it but in my mind it sounded plausible.

When I got the the mountains I did get struck down by alitutude sickness and it wasn't good. That was at about 3400m where I had severe headaches, complete loss of apetite, lack of energy, nausea which lead to vomitting, etc. I really wondered what I was doing there and just wanted to curl up in a ball and die.

After a couple of days I managed to adjust and got over all the symptoms and started to feel good. When we went for the summit I felt fantastic and was handling the conditions as well as our Sherpas. I didn't feel any lack of oxygen, shortness of breath or any of the other problems that all the other Westerners were struggling with. They all couldn't beleive that I wasn't struggling like they were. Coming back down I was keeping pace easliy with the lead Sherpas. It was a good feeling.

I put a lot of that down to hockey, it must have done me some good at least!

I always knew there was something strange about you Kelly, maybe you were sucking on that exhaled air a bit too much??

I had also giving some thought to the relation altitude training and UWH. I climbed a 6200m (over 20,000ft) peak in Nepal 18 months ago and was worried about alitutude. The main reason I was worried is that I'd never been to altitude, coming from Perth home is about 20m above sea level and a lot of my work is on the ocean at about 1m ASL.

A few weeks before I went away I considered the fact that hockey might be a form of altitude training - stressing the body physically with limited oxygen, much the same as climbing high altitude. I didn't know the physiology behind it but in my mind it sounded plausible.

When I got the the mountains I did get struck down by alitutude sickness and it wasn't good. That was at about 3400m where I had severe headaches, complete loss of apetite, lack of energy, nausea which lead to vomitting, etc. I really wondered what I was doing there and just wanted to curl up in a ball and die.

After a couple of days I managed to adjust and got over all the symptoms and started to feel good. When we went for the summit I felt fantastic and was handling the conditions as well as our Sherpas. I didn't feel any lack of oxygen, shortness of breath or any of the other problems that all the other Westerners were struggling with. They all couldn't beleive that I wasn't struggling like they were. Coming back down I was keeping pace easliy with the lead Sherpas. It was a good feeling.

I put a lot of that down to hockey, it must have done me some good at least!

Sorry about the multiple posts, I got an error message each time I hit submit but the message obviously got thru!

My apologies! ops:

That reminds me that I am sure I have heard about a South African study that compared uwh players to the normal population and it was determined that uwh has the same effect as high altitude training. Maybe a selling point? "No need ot go to Colorado guys..."

All very interesting!

Here is a breif outline of breath holding physiology, more later.

Firstly, in healthy individuals, breath holding has nothing to do with the amount of oxygen in your body (surprising I know).

The body senses levels of carbon dioxide (product of respiration) in the blood. High levels cause us to breathe (way before levels of oxygen reach dangerous levels, unless you hyperventilate first which lowers the residual level of co2 before you start).

You can improve your breath hold in two ways: 1. slowing the production of co2 (get fitter), 2. resist the stimulous to breathe (practice/will power).

This is way oversimplified but is the basics that matter.

as for training with low levels of oxygen, this is a bit more complicated.
hypoxia (low o2) stimulates the body to prduce more red blood cells, which increases the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood and therefore decreases the work of the heart (because oxygen delivery = volume of blood * amount of o2 in the blood). Decreased work of the heart leads to less production of co2 and therefore longer breath hold.

all interesting!
ps. cool website!