Apnea: How to Create Two Lungs of Steel!

Given the great interest that a particular tool for improving apnea has sparked, today I’ll take you inside this unknown world and keep you breathless for as long as possible. Isn’t that what you’re trying to do?

My heart has been devoted to apnea and spearfishing for several years, and as a scholar of the human body and its functions for over 15 years, every time I discover something that can take my apnea to a level beyond my current one, I dive into it heart and soul to try to extract its essence and make it available to my athletes.

As a kid, I was told that vital capacity is innate and cannot be improved. Vital capacity (or VC) is essentially the amount of air your lungs can hold.

Imagine being able to inflate your balloons as if they were two chambers of a truck tire, having much more air available in your lungs would allow you to perform a longer and more relaxed apnea.

Until 2005, the only ways I knew to do this were chest mobilization exercises and respiratory exercises to make the diaphragm more flexible. These are all the exercises that are performed during apnea courses and are very useful but never allowed me to increase my VC much, which fluctuated between 7.3 and 7.5L.

In 2005, I came across the Spirotiger which seemed to promise phantasmagoric things. I won’t hide that my skepticism was sky-high, and my approach to the first course I signed up for was practically a storm of questions to the speakers.

At the end of the course, I was still not convinced that this was the right choice, but I continued to research and study until I was offered the opportunity to try the tool.

From that day on, a true vivisection began of what is today the best discovery I have ever made in the field of training. And to think that after the first few days of using Spirotiger, I still thought it was one of those usual advertising bullshits that promise everything but deliver nothing.

Indeed, the tool remained among my “to try” gadgets for many, many months.

Once past the distrust, a continuous ballet of trials and errors began, which led me to discover, after many months, the correct use of the tool and how it could be incorporated into a training program for apnea.

I won’t hide that it was hard. I had to fight, not only against my skepticism but also against that of mediocre doctors and trainers who said I was just wasting my time.

The goals of my relentless research were:

• to improve vital capacity
• to reduce recovery times between one apnea and the next
• to improve the respiratory capacities of my other beloved sport that has led me to savor world levels (rowing)

For the first point, the goal of improving the VC would have led to increasing the air contained in the lungs and, theoretically, increasing the duration of my apneas.

The second point would have given me the ability to recover faster between one apnea and the next during training and during a spearfishing session.

The third point was supposed to reduce my fatigue during a competition, lowering the levels of lactic acid produced by the respiratory muscles.

Let’s now get to the essence of my research, I’ll reveal how Spiro has allowed me to improve these qualities.

Starting with the increase in VC, I must say that, after 1 year of continuous and not exactly light use of the Spiro, I saw my lung volume shoot from 7.5 to 10.3L, unimaginable!

Do you remember what I told you earlier? Classical physiology did not admit that VC was modifiable but asserted that it was an innate capacity, determined by weight, height, and age.

How was it possible then that my VC had improved so much? What had happened?

Classical physiology wasn’t wrong to say that VC is innate, but there was one thing it hadn’t accounted for.

Do you think you can fully utilize your lungs without training?

Here’s what had happened, Spirotiger had allowed my diaphragm and my ribcage to expand to their maximum limit.

Indeed, our body allows expansion at 3 very specific points, which are referred to the 3 types of breathing: diaphragmatic, thoracic, and clavicular.

These three parts of breathing are interdependent, and their capacity is determined by the ability of the muscles and joints to use the maximum range of motion.

Imagine wearing a very tight wetsuit, could you breathe by expanding your ribcage and diaphragm to the max?

If you’ve never worn a tight wetsuit, let me tell you. Definitely not! And if you are a little guy, I advise you not to try it, otherwise: sing as a soprano voice in the choir for life 😄

Well, the tight wetsuit represents your muscular and joint system which, not being elastic, blocks the expansion movement of the lungs and thus reduces vital capacity.

You see how the VC is determined at birth but how training with Spiro can increase it: simply by allowing maximum expansion of the space that will then be occupied by the lungs.

The increase in muscular elasticity and joint mobility will also reduce the compression effect that occurs when going deep. Good thoracic elasticity will reduce the risk of barotraumas.

Reducing also the recovery time from one apnea to the next allows you to perform better during training and makes it safer.

By allowing continuous and forced breathing, Spiro manages to train the endurance and strength of the respiratory muscles, which otherwise could be difficult to train.

There are other devices that allow you to train breathing, but none of these allows you to do it for a long period without running into hyperventilation.

Spirotiger, maintaining isocapnia (does not alter the physiological balance between oxygen and carbon dioxide), allows you to breathe forcibly for many minutes and thus improves the capabilities of the respiratory muscles.

Even the diaphragm benefits because by strengthening, it fatigues less and the contractions during apnea will be less annoying.

Moreover, well-trained respiratory muscles will allow you to lower your heart rate more quickly during recovery between apneas. Also, the resting heart rate will be lower.

These advantages overlap well with apneistic performance because a lower heart rate allows you to perform a longer and more comfortable apnea.

Want to see how to use Spirotiger?

Watch the video below!