A Breathing Expert’s Exercise To Increase Respiratory Strength

He details the process this way: “You take a normal breath in and out through your nose, pinch your nose, and hold. Then start walking with the breath hold and go into a jog. Keep going until the air hunger is quite strong, and then let go.” Perhaps start with a simple walk, working your way up into a jog after a few sessions.

Essentially, this exercise reduces your carbon dioxide sensitivity—which, in case you didn’t know, is an important marker for top-notch respiratory strength. “What that can do is increase carbon dioxide in the blood, and it can help to reduce your sensitivity to the gas,” McKeown adds. “That’s something we use a lot with athletes, but it does more than that: It will open up the nose; it will open up the lungs; it will increase blood flow to the brain.”

Additionally, according to McKeown, breath holds can cause the spleen to contract, which can improve your oxygen carrying capacity: “The spleen is our blood bank,” he says. “It contains about 8% of our red blood cells. So when you do a long breath hold, the spleen will release red blood cells into circulation. This is why we have athletes do it before they go out into a game, because it takes about 10 to 60 minutes for the spleen to reabsorb that blood back.” (He has a whole YouTube video discussing the topic, too, in case you’re curious.)