Freediving
How to Train for Freediving
The breath-hold tables, breathing drills and safety habits that build a longer, calmer hold, and how to run every one of them from your phone or Apple Watch.
You train for freediving mostly on dry land, with structured breath-hold tables and slow breathing drills, not by pushing a maximum hold every day. The two classic tables are the CO2 table (same hold, shrinking rests) which builds comfort with the urge to breathe, and the O2 table (same rest, growing holds) which builds tolerance to low oxygen. You wrap those in a relaxed warm-up, calm breathing exercises, and one ironclad safety rule: never hold your breath in water alone.
- CO2 table
- Trains the urge to breathe
- O2 table
- Trains low-oxygen tolerance
- Where
- Mostly dry, never alone in water
- How often
- A few times a week, not daily
Better freediving is not about gritting your teeth and holding longer through willpower. It is about training your body to tolerate carbon dioxide and low oxygen, and training your mind to stay relaxed while it happens. Almost all of that work is done dry, on the sofa or the floor at home, with simple breath-hold tables and breathing drills. Here is how each one works, what it gives you, and how to run them safely.
First, the rule that keeps you alive
Freediving training carries a real risk of shallow-water blackout, and it is non-negotiable to respect it. Never hold your breath in water alone. Train dry, or in water only with a trained buddy who is watching you and ready to support your head. Most freediving accidents happen in the final moments of a hold or just as the diver surfaces, when no one is looking.
Just as important: do not hyperventilate. Taking rapid, deep breaths before a hold does not add useful oxygen. It only flushes out carbon dioxide, which removes the very urge to breathe that warns you to surface. That is how blackouts happen. Breathe slowly and calmly, with long, unhurried exhales.
Recovery breaths. The instant any hold ends, take recovery breaths: a quick breath in, hold it for a second, then exhale, repeated three to five times. This re-oxygenates you fast and is the single habit that protects you in real freediving. Build it into every table you do.
Set your baseline first
Every table below scales to one number: your relaxed maximum breath-hold. Find it with a calm Static Hold, a two-minute easy breathe-up followed by a single comfortable hold that you stop while it still feels fine. Use that figure as your base, and the app builds every table around it so the holds are always challenging but safely sub-maximal. Re-measure it every few weeks to watch your progress and keep the tables honest.
The two classic tables: CO2 and O2
These are the heart of apnea training. They look similar but train opposite things, so you do them on separate days, never both hard in one session, and not every single day.
| Table | How it changes | What it trains |
|---|---|---|
| CO2 table | Hold stays the same, rests get shorter each round | Tolerance to rising CO2 and the urge to breathe |
| O2 table | Rest stays the same, holds get longer each round | Tolerance to falling oxygen (hypoxia) |
- CO2 table: The hold is fixed at a comfortable fraction of your max, while the recovery between holds shrinks round by round, from a couple of minutes down to about fifteen seconds. CO2 builds up across the set, so the urge to breathe and rhythmic diaphragm contractions arrive earlier each round. That discomfort is the point: you are teaching your mind to stay calm with the signal, not to panic at it.
- O2 table: Here the recovery stays generous and fixed, but each hold is longer than the last, climbing toward (but never reaching) your maximum. This gently trains your body to function with less oxygen. Because it pushes toward longer holds, you keep it sub-maximal when training without supervision, and you never chase a personal best alone.
Warm up, and the advanced FRC table
Always run a Warm-Up table before harder work: short, gentle holds that grow from a quarter to around two-thirds of your max, each with full recovery. It eases your body into apnea, triggers the dive reflex, and makes everything that follows feel easier.
For experienced freedivers there is also the Conservative FRC table. FRC holds begin from a passive exhale rather than a full breath, so they reach diaphragm contractions quickly and feel hard early, which is why the holds are kept very short. It builds tolerance and trains relaxation under pressure, but it is an advanced drill: keep it brief, and never do FRC in water without direct supervision.
Breathing exercises: the calm before the hold
A freediver's most underrated skill is slowing down. These paced breathing patterns lower your heart rate, settle your nervous system, and set up a relaxed breathe-up so your holds start from a place of calm rather than tension. Use them before a session, before a hold, or any time you want to down-regulate.
- Box breathing (4·4·4·4) — inhale, hold, exhale and hold empty for four seconds each. A balanced, centring pattern that steadies you before a dive.
- 4-7-8 breathing — inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. The long exhale strongly down-regulates the nervous system for deep relaxation.
- Breathe-Up (4 in, 8 out) — slow breathing with a long exhale and no big holds, exactly the relaxed rhythm to use in the minute before a breath-hold.
- Coherent 5-5 — even five seconds in, five out, about six breaths a minute. A resonant, meditative pace that brings heart rate and mind into a calm, steady state.
Putting it into a week
You do not need much. Two or three short sessions a week will move the needle, as long as you space the hard work and stay relaxed.
- Start every session with a warm-up: A few gentle holds with full recovery, every time, before anything harder.
- Alternate CO2 and O2 days: Do a CO2 table one day and an O2 table on another. Never push both to the limit in the same session, and never train tables daily.
- Bookend with breathing drills: Use box, 4-7-8, breathe-up or coherent breathing to relax before holds and to recover after, and on rest days as standalone calm practice.
- Measure occasionally, not constantly: Re-test a relaxed static hold every few weeks to update your base and see progress. Chasing a max every session is how people stall and get hurt.
Freediving and scuba reward different skills, and many people enjoy both. If you are weighing them up, see scuba diving vs freediving for how they compare.
Train it all, free, in the Diving Standard app
Every exercise above is built into the Freediving training section of the Diving Standard app, on iPhone and Apple Watch. Set your max hold once and the app generates your CO2, O2, warm-up and FRC tables scaled to you, with a guided runner that counts every hold and rest, paced breathing drills with a calming visual, a Static Hold timer that tracks your personal best, and a custom table builder for your own rounds. Sessions sync between your phone and watch into one shared history, and the safety guidance is built right in. It is completely free.
Start your freediving training, free
Get CO2 and O2 tables scaled to you, guided breathing drills, a static-hold timer and a synced session history on iPhone and Apple Watch. Download Diving Standard free.
Get the Diving Standard appFrequently asked questions
How do you train for freediving at home?
Most freediving training is done dry at home using breath-hold tables and slow breathing drills. The two key tables are the CO2 table (same hold, shrinking rests) to build comfort with the urge to breathe, and the O2 table (same rest, growing holds) to build tolerance to low oxygen, wrapped in a gentle warm-up and calm breathing exercises. Never practise breath-holds in water alone.
What is the difference between a CO2 table and an O2 table?
A CO2 table keeps the hold time the same and shortens the rest between holds each round, training your tolerance to rising carbon dioxide and the urge to breathe. An O2 table keeps the rest the same and lengthens the holds each round, training your tolerance to low oxygen. Do them on separate days, not both hard in one session.
Is it safe to practise breath-holding alone?
You can do dry breath-hold training alone, kept comfortable and sub-maximal, but you must never hold your breath in water without a trained buddy watching you. Freediving carries a risk of shallow-water blackout, and you should also avoid hyperventilating before any hold, since it removes the urge to breathe that warns you to surface.
How often should I do freediving breath-hold training?
Two or three short sessions a week is plenty for steady progress. Always warm up first, alternate CO2 and O2 tables on different days rather than training tables daily, and re-test your relaxed maximum hold only every few weeks rather than chasing a personal best every session.