If you want to freedive for longer, you should train and practice apnea thoroughly, develop an effective breath-up routine, keep your muscles strong and supple, learn to stay calm at depth, and wear a wetsuit that keeps you warm, comfortable and mobile in the water.
Freediving is a physically and mentally demanding sport, where each individual dive must be carried out on a single breath of air, under massive environmental and psychological pressures. These requirements make training, practice and preparation vital for safety and success. For longer dives, freedivers must have mastered apnea (breath-hold) techniques and must also make themselves as oxygen and energy efficient as possible in the water.
The True Story Book of Freediving Champion Audrey Mestre and the Story of Her Death
View on Amazon: The Last Attempt (Opens new tab)
Top rated read
If you’re a beginner freediver, you might want to know how you can train yourself to freedive for longer so that you can accomplish deeper dives, or just spend more time enjoying the underwater environmental the bottom of a recreational dive. Our article tells you more about how to hold your breath longer in freediving and other factors that can lengthen the timing and depth of your dive.
How do you hold your breath longer when freediving?
Elite freedivers may hold their breath for nine or ten minutes in competition, and the Guinness world record for longest breath-hold by a freediver stands at 24 minutes 37.36 seconds, after being set by Budimir Šobat in 2021. But how does an ordinary human being become capable of accomplishing a breath-hold of even half this length?
The answer is that when it comes to holding your breath for longer in freediving, there is no substitute for thorough training in apnea (breath-hold) techniques and regular practice of apnea in and out of the water. Any newcomer to freediving should focus on these first before thinking about any wider measures that might help them extend their breath-holding times.
Let’s look at apnea training and some of the other key factors in turn…
Apnea training
Undertaking regular apnea exercises, wet or dry, allows the body to get used to functioning under apnea conditions. Over time, this will increase lung function and capacity, as well as boosting the body’s tolerance of low oxygen and high carbon dioxide blood levels, and efficiency of working under apnea conditions. Together these changes will make you more capable of longer dives and deeper dives.
Dynamic apnea training, including walking or strength training under apnea, helps get your body accustomed to anaerobic muscle working which can feel difficult or uncomfortable, with greater lactic acid build up in the muscles compared to aerobic working.
Without apnea training, a beginner freedivers could only safely accomplish short and shallow dives and might suffer injury if they attempted longer, deeper diving.
Good breath-up technique
The role of breathing in the last few minutes before a dive (the breath-up) is also important, with freedivers using various techniques and practices to take in as much air as possible immediately before descent. The more oxygen contained in the lungs through the final breath, the longer the dive may be able to last.
Learning to breath from the lower chest and diaphragm (segmented breathing) as well as utilizing the upper chest can maximize the size of a normal inhale. More experienced freedivers may use a technique called “lung packing” or glossopharyngeal insufflation (GI) to add extra air on top of a full inhale.
Regular practice to make body more oxygen efficient
Regular apnea practice over a long period, wet or dry, static and dynamic, will train the body to become more efficient in using oxygen. Less oxygen use in the body means that a single breath can last for longer, extending the length of a dive.
Exercise
Exercise outside of just freediving can be greatly beneficial for preparing you before you enter the water. We’ve written an in-depth article on how to get in shape for freediving (opens new tab) which will give you lots of tips on how to prepare your body, and ultimately improve your breath-hold.
Hydrodynamic clothing
Clothing or accessories with excess material or unnecessary bulk could weigh down a freediver and create drag in the water, making it harder for them to move and using up more energy to overcome these factors. More oxygen and energy spent on movement means less oxygen available for longer diving.
A well-fitting wetsuit will be more hydrodynamic and should generate less drag than alternatives (a swimming costume, land clothing etc..) but should be chosen carefully for maximum flexibility and warmth. A over-tight wetsuit could restrict breathing, and a wetsuit that lets in cold water will mean more energy is required to stay warm.
For the best freediving performance, a two piece wetsuit with a hood, made from open-cell neoprene may work best.
Keeping warm
The seas and lakes where freedivers generally dive are likely to be below normal human body temperature. The body may spend a great deal of energy and oxygen on maintaining core temperature in the water while freediving, especially if diving in colder conditions or for extended periods.
To avoid using your valuable oxygen on physical processes to keep you warm, make sure that you are dressed warmly. Freediving wetsuits can enable longer, deeper and more comfortable diving. Two-piece wetsuits are often preferred by freedivers because of their greater flexibility and also the increased warmth of two overlapping pieces at the torso.
Mental focus and resilience
Staying calm and avoiding panic and struggle in the water can also avoid wasting energy and oxygen, potentially extending dive times and improving diving experience.
You can boost your calm and resilience by training for apnea in order to become psychologically more comfortable with breath-holding. Yoga, meditation or other relaxation techniques may also be helpful.
What muscles are needed for freediving?
Freediving works a large number of muscles all around the body, including those like the heart and diaphragm which power vital processes of circulation and breathing, alongside muscles in arms and legs which propel the body through the water during descent and ascent.
We’ve detailed some of the main ones below, but for far more information, check out our full article on the muscles worked by freediving (opens new tab).
Heart
The heart is obviously a vital muscle, pumping blood around the body, and carrying oxygen to the brain and other vital organs, while helping to remove waste and performother functions.
Experienced freedivers might experience a fall in heart rate of up to 50% during a dive, as their bodies attempt to conserve oxygen. Despite this fall in rate, the heart muscle is still working hard to beat due to the higher water pressure around the body.
Diaphragm
The diaphragm muscle which sits between the chest cavity, rib cage and abdomen, is the main muscle used for breathing and needs to be trained to be both strong and flexible. The diaphragm is particularly important for abdominal breathing, maximizing the amount of air in the lungs during the breath-up and allowing longer dives.
Leg and arm muscles
Leg muscles will all be working hard during a freedive including quadriceps (quads), gluteus maximus muscles in the buttocks, hamstrings, calf muscles, and the ilipsoas and pectineus muscles in the upper thigh. Arm muscles may also be used to aid propulsion, including rotator cuffs, deltoids, teres major and wrist extensors. Stronger limb muscles which are used to apnea movement may carry you more safely on longer, deeper dives.