CO2 Tolerance Testing To Improve Your Breathwork Performance

The CO2 Exhale Test is the simplest way to measure your CO2 Tolerance. This is a common test used to see where you are on a day to day basis with holding and handling the stress of CO2 buildup in the body. It involves taking 5 breaths and releasing the last breath as slow as possible. I will do the counting and you do the breathing for your CO2 Score

Your time stops when: You run out of air prior to holding the breath, You swallow, or You interrupt the exhale with an inhale.

Transcript

CO2 tolerance testing is essentially saying I can hold the stress of CO2 for this long.

So we breathe in oxygen,

Right?

And then we exhale CO2.

But what happens when you hold your breath in a neutral lung?

Hold your breath while CO2 begins to build up.

And a lot of people will say that this is a waste product or a toxin.

I would disagree.

It is a product that our body makes through cellular respiration to create acidity in the blood so that the oxygen molecules that have attached to the red blood cells can release.

And so that you can utilize this cellular respiration to get oxygen to very important places like your mind,

Your brain,

And all around your body.

It has to happen.

If you're too oxygenated,

If you're in a hyper oxygenated or hypoxic state,

The molecules are just going to hang on to the red blood cells and they're not going to go anywhere.

We need to be able to utilize them and be creating some acidity.

And that's why you see many trained breath workers using a retention as a way to do that.

It's not and it also feels good.

There's some euphoria there that happens in a hypocapnic state when we're holding on to that and we're allowing that CO2 to build up.

However,

We really need to hold it in a way to balance the cellular respiration and that's what we're gonna do today.

You may notice that you can't hold the breath for very long as you first start your breath work journey and that's okay.

You know that's just the way it is.

But over time you can build that up because you learn to train those muscles and you learn to sit with the stress of CO2.

It is a stressor.

You might feel a little panicky,

Maybe a little anxious when we're doing this.

But it's okay.

I'm gonna guide you through it.

Thanks for those who are joining.

Leave your comments below.

Give a little heart and if you feel like donating because you like this content,

I would love that too.

I'll leave you a message afterward.

So I'm not gonna give you any instruction in the way I want you to breathe other than three things here.

Okay we're gonna do five breaths,

Probably six.

I'll give you a little intro breath.

We're gonna do five breaths.

Now this test is called the CO2 tolerance test.

It is,

It came from a version by Oxygen Advantage called the Bolt test.

And it's just a little different in language of breath.

We do it a little differently.

But all I want,

We're gonna do a breath together.

I'll guide you through that.

Then we're gonna take five even breaths.

So it's a four count in and let it out four counts.

On the fifth breath,

You will release as slow as you can.

I recommend using your nose.

However,

If you want to use your mouth,

That's okay.

But I recommend using your nose as you breathe in and then you let it go all the way down.

Now I'm gonna take track of time for you.

You don't need to worry about that.

I will take care of that.

However,

We'll be releasing and you want you to listen for three cues.

This is the important part.

Write it down.

Remember it.

I will remind you as we do this though.

Should you run out of exhale and you need to take a breath,

That's your time.

Okay that's just your time.

You run out of air or run out of exhale is a better way to say it.

And then you need to take a breath in.

That's your time.

Number two.

Should you exhale and you feel as though you have completed that exhale and you're going into a time of retention where you're holding the breath,

That's still your time.

I don't want you to hold anything.

Once you run out of exhale,

That's your time.

Run out of exhale,

Needing to breathe in and the third item is should you,

Just like I did there,

Swallow.

That's your time.

Swallow,

Run out of air,

Run out of exhale or you run out of the start exhaling and you need to take a breath in.

Those are the three criteria in which this is graded and I will tell you that it's not graded on an ego basis.

I don't really care what your time is honestly.

This is you learning about you.

Whatever your time is is what your time is and that is where your journey is.

I'm gonna apply that to box breathing here in a minute and what that time means and how you can hold the breath and how you can improve this over time.

This is going to be something that I teach.

I teach it when we do high elevation hikes.

I teach this when I'm going to clients who are working at having more stamina and working at becoming stronger.

This test,

We do this every week.

So let us do it together.

Remember your three cues.

I'm just gonna play here.

Really easy,

Right?

Do something really simple.

Wherever you are,

You can sit,

You can lay down.

It really doesn't matter.

I'm gonna give you more mechanics cues on the next section.

Right here,

Just breathe.

I want us all to be on the same.

So wherever you are,

Take a nice exhale all the way out and all of us together.

We'll take a full breath in all the way to the top.

There you go and then release it all the way down.

Moving into our five breaths.

Breathe in.

Two,

Three,

Four.

Now out.

Two,

Three,

Four.

Fourth breath.

In,

Three,

Four.

Now out.

Two,

Three.

Here is our third one.

In,

Two,

Three,

Four.

Now out.

Two,

Three,

Four.

Two more.

In,

Two,

Three,

Four.

And out.

Two,

Three,

Four.

Take a giant breath in all the way to the top.

Two,

Three,

Four.

And release it as slow as you can,

Keeping track of your time.

Four seconds.

Seven seconds.

Remember,

If you breathe in,

You run out of oxygen,

You run out of exhale,

Or you swallow.

That's your time.

Twelve,

Thirteen,

Fourteen,

Seventeen,

Eighteen,

Twenty seconds.

Twenty-two.

Twenty-five.

You can write your time in the comment when you're done.

Twenty-nine.

Thirty-two.

Thirty-five.

Thirty-eight.

Forty seconds.

Forty-four.

Forty-five.

Forty-six.

Forty-nine.

Fifty-two.

Fifty-three.

Fifty-four.

Fifty-five.

Fifty-six.

Fifty-seven.

Fifty-eight.

And all of us together,

No matter where you are,

Take a giant breath in all the way to the top,

All the way up.

And release it with a sigh because it feels good.

Beautiful.

We're not in the business of comparing here,

But I will tell you a little bit about what this means.

And this is for you.

It's not for anyone else to know.

I really just have you putting your time because it'll be interactive.

But I want you to know that this indicates where you are stress level state.

So you probably came to today's session to work on something.

Maybe it's anxiety or stress,

Or just being able to biohack how you feel.

And knowing how you feel is the first tenet of the language of breath.

Awareness is the foundation to all positive change.

If you're not aware,

Then what are we going to do?

You're just going to be breathing and hoping something happens.

So what does all this mean?

Well,

If you were between 1 and 25 seconds,

Or 0 and 25 seconds,

We'll just say 1 and 25.

This indicates there is a dysfunction in this CO2 tolerance.

Meaning,

It's harder to hold it.

There's something going on,

Maybe on a stress level,

On an internal level,

Or maybe it's just practice in general.

You haven't learned to hold CO2 in that way.

I see this a lot when we do high elevation hikes above 8,

000 or 10,

000 or even 15,

000 feet,

Where people are in and out of the mouth.

And they're not able to really because there's a CO2 pressure and oxygen differential between the lungs and the outside environment.

It's just really hard.

So I had to teach them to be able to maintain that through nasal breathing and so forth.

So if you're between 0 and 25,

It indicates that your box,

When we do box breathing,

Should be about 4 to 5 seconds.

So if you're practicing this,

Stay there,

4 to 5.

And if you are somewhere between 25 and 40,

This indicates about normal.

I say normal,

It's not really the right word,

But we'll say average.

This is what most people score in who have maybe had some practice,

But pretty much right in the middle there.

And that would indicate that you could do about a 6 or 7 count box.

6 or 7 count.

That's about where you would be at if you were doing box breathing.

That's where you should be for training.

If you did daily breath work,

If you just did a box breath for 10 minutes every day utilizing your CO2 tolerance score,

You would be training CO2 tolerance.

If you were doing a higher box,

You may not because you're not quite at that level.

Or if you're at a higher level and you're doing like a 2 count box,

It would be more hypoxic than it would be CO2 tolerance.

So just keep that in mind.

And if you're above 40,

40 to 60,

That's where we stop.

You might be able to do an 8 to 10 count box and be okay.

So that's what all those scores mean.

That's where we're at.

And you can apply those in any way you can.

I want you to know that each day is different.

Each day brings a different count,

Even for me.

I have been trying to expand my box quite large and to work on CO2 tolerance where I do something called the bottom triangle.

We'll see if we can get into that today.

This bottom triangle also is a nice way of training CO2 tolerance.

Reviews

Love learning while breathing with intention! Thank you

Very cool, I will play with this— I’m a surfer, so definitely want to increase it, but made it to 90 seconds on 2nd try— thank you! ✨🙏🏼✨

Really great information 🙌🏽 thank you so much! Now I know where I can be training and hope to expand! 40 seconds 😁

Thanks Ryan, found this super informative and valuable to my practice.

Simple test with solid explanations and useful tips for what to do with the results. I got to 56 and am stoked to keep improving!

Thank you very much now i can Work on doing my box breathing with 8 9 or 10.
💜🙏💜✨✨✨✨✨