How he did it?
For four months, David held the Guinness world record for oxygen-assisted static apnea (holding your breath after breathing pure oxygen): 17 minutes and 4.4 seconds. His record was then surpassed by Tom Sietas on September 19, 2008. David’s record for doing what I’ll describe is between 7 and 8 minutes.
What were the results of his training?
My first baseline test: 40 seconds.
15 minutes later: 3 minutes and 33 seconds (!!!).
Durign a TedTalk, out of roughly 12 attendees, all but one beat Harry Houdini’s lifelong record of 3 minutes and 30 seconds using David's technique!. One woman held her breath for more than 5 minutes.
Here’s how we did it…
The Technique
*This is the technique prescribed by David Blaine. There are plenty more out there but they all appear to involve a similar process and essentially the same breathing exercises.
- Deep breathing: 1:30
- Purging: 1:15
- Hold breath for target 1:30 (After 1:30: Take 3 semi-purge breaths)
- 1:30 deep breathing
- 1:30 purging
- Hold breath for target 2:30 (After 2:30: Take 3 semi-purge breaths)
- 2:00 deep breathing
- 1:45 purging
- Hold breath for as long as possible
Deep Breathing
Before holding your breath, inhale and exhale slowly from deep within your diaphragm. By doing this, you’re ridding your lungs of low-quality air. Spend five seconds breathing in, then hold the breath for one second, before breathing out for ten seconds. Exhaling for 10 seconds through your mouth through your almost-closed mouth with tongue pressed against your lower teeth. It should be a hissing exhalation and make a “tsssssss…” sound. All breathing and exercises are performed though the mouth.
Purging
Exhale forcefully, pushing as much air out of your lungs as possible. Puff out your cheeks as you do this, and imagine you are trying to blow a toy sailboat across a stretch of water. Once you have exhaled completely, inhale quickly and repeat. Try to keep your body as still as possible while you do this, to avoid expending any of the stored oxygen from the previous step.
*If you do this too hard you’ll feel like you’re going to pass out. If you keep going, you probably will. Slow down and take it a little easier.
Semi-purging: Breathing between the above two. More forceful than deep breathing but less forceful than full purging. Used for recovering after each time trial.
Additional Pointers
– Make sure you’re seated comfortably (not lying down) and move as little as humanly possible.
-One thing David himself does when he does his record attempts is mentally move through each muscle in his body and ensure it is completely relaxed.
-Personally, I found leaning forward a little rather than leaning right back helped when I started struggling at the 3min mark.
-Another recommendation from Mr Blaine that I certainly found useful was running through the alphabet, naming a celebrity/famous figure for each. You may find some ridiculous names pop into your head..
