Apnea Training for Oxygen Efficiency & Co2 Tolerance
As a mountain, military or endurance athlete, your ability to process oxygen, manage Co2 buildup and work efficiently under fatigue is paramount to performance success. Free divers use a supplement to traditional threshold and interval cardiovascular training known as apnea. Apnea training is, in layman's terms, holding your breath. By limiting the amount of oxygen in the body, accomplished through the simple act of holding your breath, your body builds up a tolerance to Co2 and increases the oxygen absorption rate. Like cardiovascular, strength or power, apnea can be trained.
For freedivers, an apnea bout causes multiple physiological and physiological reactions, the first of all being that heart rate will rapidly decelerate and induce a condition called bradycardia, which causes peripheral blood vessels to narrow and an increase in blood pressure. These physiological reactions cause your body to do a sort of blood-oxygen economic reassessment, where the oxygen that was previously being sent to the peripherals of your body now flows to the parts deemed vital; the brain and lungs. Trickle down oxygen economics. This, in turn, increases the oxygen absorption rate and hypoxic tolerance of an athlete. But what does this mean for someone who isn’t a freediver?
More bang for your buck.
If you’ve ever experienced “Tailpipe”, a 1 minute all our airbike or a timed 2k row, you’ve felt the effects of hypoxia. The buildup of Co2 from the muscular effort act as the jack and limited breathing efficiency through high heart rate act as the coke. Combine them and you’re drinking a terrible hypoxic cocktail. Your muscles quite literally thrive off of oxygen, so your ability to process and maximize the oxygen absorption rate means you can flush your Co2 quicker and beat the competition. Simple as that.
But how can this increased oxygen absorption and Co2 tolerance be accomplished? Static & Dynamic Apnea.
Static apnea requires no movement and can be done from the comfort of your bed, couch or kitchen table. All you have to do is hold your breath--- wisely. For static apnea, a reasonable goal for beginners is a two and a half minute breath hold within the first month. To accomplish this, we use a simple block system. You have five different three minute blocks, totally 15 minutes of training. At the top of each block, you hold your breath as long as possible, then rest the remaining time. Once a hold over two minutes and thirty seconds can be accomplished, move to five blocks of four minutes, and eventually five blocks of 5 minutes.
For dynamic apnea, the training methodology varies. I have no business telling you to go subsurface, do a flip and swim 50m on a single breath like you’re in Coronado, but you can train with the same intentions. The easiest way to achieve dynamic apnea is through “apnea walks”. Apnea walks are as simples as they sound and require no skill nor equipment. Take a breath and start walking, working through the convulsions and need to breath until you absolutely have to, then exhale. After breathing for a minute, repeat this 4 more times until you’ve finished the session.
The benefits of apnea training are no magic pill, secret solution or be-all-end-all to training, nor are they new. The fact of the matter is, they are a solution to enable you to better deal with Co2, increase oxygen absorption and train the mind. Keep it primary.
