Possibly a silly one, but how long can you hold your breath for?Also if poss please stae your age.

I used to do a lot of snorkel and SCUBA diving when i was 16 and i could hold my breath for a long time (not sure exactly).

Nowadays i have sinus problems and find that i can't hold my breath for very long at all. I guess it is all down to training.

Something i learnt though was that you should never take a deep breath before you attempt to hold your breath as it make your body think that a lot more oxygen supply will be available. just breathe normally and you should be able to hold you breath longer.

Note: I don't reccomend you try and hold your breath for fun, even though you've ben incredibly stupid if you've forced yourself to black out via oxygen starvation.

Wilf

I reckon with a little bit of practice and effort most people could do 90 seconds quite easily.

With a serious effort and trainig, who knows? 3 minutes? 4? 5? really not sure

I smoke, so holding my breath isn't really an option.

Chris.

I don't smoke but do get asthma. I can't hold my breath for too long. Swimming a breadth underwater is quite easy, but I don't think I could do a length.

Thanks just wondered if it could be used as a measure of ones own level of fitness.I have noticed that after I have done any exercise that I can hold my breath longer,which is not for long I suppose-latest attempt 50secs

I like to see how far I can swin under water holding my breath ... my record is about 45 meters.

It helps if u breath in / out deeply and fast before hand ... I heard that pearl divers do this ... something to do with oxygenating your blood.

i am 26 and just held my breath for 1 min. I can do about 25 - 30m underwater in the pool. Hyperventilating does help as it hyperoxygenates your blood.

I was 28 this past Wednesday and I can hold my breath underwater for about a minute, and like Cyclone I tend to swim underwater as well, well more with my head just skimming the surface really and can probably do about the half the length of Ponds Forge's leisure pool before having to come up for breath.

Holding your breath is something that can be improved quite quickly with a bit of practice.

I swim in the lane pool at ponds forge.
When I started swimming on a regular basis about 12 months ago I could do about 12 metres underwater. Now I can probably do 30, maybe 35 on a good day. It's just practice.
If you end up in the diving pool swimming down touching the centre bottom then back up to the other side is hard. And the lifeguard also told us off for diving to the bottom :-(

I've done the diving pool thing too ... and it plays havoc with your ears ... why is that !?

It's all about pressure Jamie, The deeper you go, the more water (which is heavier than air) you have above you and hence pressing down on you.

Your eardrums are designed to move back and forth and so you feel this change in pressure on them.

You can amend the pressure on you ears by holding your nose tightly and trying to breathe out through it. Since all the areas of your head are interconnected the only way for the air to go is to push your eardrums out from a ) position to a ( position. This allows equalise the air pressure inside and outside your head and stops that weird feeling.

Wait until you get down to 25 metres, that is really odd as you've equalised the pressure a few times then and the pressure is approx 3.5 atmospheres (i think).

Wilf

What happens to the pressure when you come back up from 25m then. Does the pain pressure thing happen in reverse?

technically yes, DaBouncer.

But when you are heading back up from 25m below (from a SCUBA perspective) you are far more worried abotu decompression. If you come up too quickly without the proper precautions then then nitrogen that has been absorbed into your blood stream begins to expand as less pressure is placed upon it.

This can cause nitrogen bubbles to form in your blood stream causing problems and it is likely to be fatal if these bubble form in your brain.

With free diving this doesn't occur because you aren't breathing pressurised air when at 25m or any other non 'normal' pressure so you haven't got any excess nitrogen absorbed into your blood.

SCUBA is incredibly dangerous, that is why you need to have a medical every year to be classed as 'fit to dive'.

Wilf

I think I get it BT...

Kinda like you're creating more pressure inside your head to conteract the pressure of the water outsite ?