Holding your breath

Question
Hey.My name is matt and i am 14 years old.I am very interested in diving. i would like to know if there are any exercises that i can do to help me hold my breath longer.I am very active and can hold my breath for a minute and a half above water and close to a minute when diving.Please give me some tips cause i am going free-diving in key west this summer and would really like to enjoy the time that i am under water longer.Thanks,Matt

Answer
Matt,

There two ways you can hold your breath underwater.  One is by just holding yourself underwater.  This is good, but it doesn't help you out with your overall cardiovascular process.  The second is to actually be moving while underwater.  This will help with your lung capacity and your overall cardiovascular health.  This is call anaerobic exercise.  This will help you train for your diving in Key West.

Being that you want to dive, I think that anaerobic exercise is what is best for you.  The only way that swimmers truly train this is by doing hypoxic sets.  This means that swimmers will swim while consciously holding their breaths.  This can be done by either swimming and not breathing, breathing in intervals (and increasing those intervals), or by underwater swimming.

I suggest you do some underwater swimming.  Push off the wall and see how far you can go underwater.  Keep doing this.  Take a timed rest in between each time you do this.  I would start off with resting 30 seconds in between each attempt.  Push yourself.  Also make sure there is a lifeguard present who knows what you are doing.  They will be more watchful this way.

I don't have a timeline for how long it will take for you to improve you unfortunately.  Each person is different.  This can also depend on your age.  However, if you train this way regularly, you will see improvements.  You will see improvements in how far you can go underwater and on how much rest you need in between sets.  You are rather young, so your cardiovascular conditioning should come much quicker.

Give this a try and let me know how it works out.  I will be interested to hear about your results.

Good luck Matt.
Eric