Nope. Not a real photo. But they probably have similar breath holding capabilities.
A few weeks ago at work, a student, a P.E. teacher and myself were having a conversation about sport.
The topic came around to swimming and then to how long we could hold our breath for. I hadn’t really thought about it. The P.E. teacher explained that the average person can hold their breath for about 30 seconds to a minute. The student then challenged us to see how long we could hold our breath for. The P.E. teacher declined, as she was pretty busy, but as her office door is next to my desk, the student repeated his challenge to me.
I won.
The student was surprised. I wasn’t.
I failed to mention to the student that I surf, but more importantly, that I used to play the tuba.
I first picked up the tuba when I was about ten. It was the biggest instrument I could find in the music room, and I thought it would impress the girls. It did not. The thing weighed as much as I did at the time and impressed nobody. I practiced, then joined the band. I joined the county big band at the age of twelve, which was also the same time that I realized that it was guitars that impressed the girls and took that up as well.
In the county band, the brass players were taken to one side for individual tutoring. It was here that I learned to breathe.
Typically, we think of breathing as our chest rising, our stomach going in in and our lungs filling with air. It is the diaphragm, a muscle located between your chest and stomach which does about 80% of the work for this.
The brass tutor taught us the opposite. Our chest stays relatively still, while our stomach inflates to fill our lungs. Not only does this allow us to inhale more air and give our body more oxygen, but by training in belly breathing, we can increase our lung capacity. Strengthening the diaphragm can also help us breathe quicker.
We looked stupid, but it worked. My tuba playing increased as a result. I could sustain notes for longer, I could play for a lot longer between breaths and could inhale faster when I needed to. I became a better tuba player as a result and possibly, a better surfer today.
Greater lung capacity not only allows surfers to perform better, but it buys more time underwater for when the ocean gets the better of us – something we could all do with. I am mindful that as I am writing this, Mavericks has recently finished with Grant Baker triumphant. We watch the waves that are made with awe and the waves that aren’t with horror. I don’t know how it feels to be caught in a two wave hold down, but with some of the biggest swells happening right now all over the world, I’d rather be held down with filled lungs than not.
