How to breathe between holds: breathe-up, final breath and recovery breaths

Updated October 18, 2026

A breath-hold table is mostly breathing. Between two holds you do three different kinds of it: relaxed breathing to calm down, one final breath to fill up, and a few recovery breaths straight after the hold. Each has a different job, and getting them right matters more than squeezing out a few extra seconds.

Relaxed breathing (the breathe-up)

This is what fills most of every rest.

• Normal volume. Breathe slowly, through the nose if you can, letting the belly move first. Don’t make the breaths bigger than usual.
• Exhale longer than you inhale — roughly twice as long. SSI gives 4 seconds in and 8 seconds out as an example; a freediving instructor quoted by Gear Patrol suggests 3 in and 6 out. The long, easy exhale helps your heart rate settle.
• Let the exhale happen. Relax and let the air flow out on its own rather than blowing it out.

Why not breathe harder to “load up”? Fast or deep breathing — hyperventilation — lowers your CO2. That delays the urge to breathe, which is your body’s early warning, and makes it more likely to black out without feeling it coming.

breathtable’s default pace is 4 seconds in and 8 out, with presets of 3/6 (gentler) and 5/10 (slower). You can also set any pace from 2 to 10 seconds in and 2 to 20 seconds out. If a pace feels like effort, pick a shorter one: the right pace is the one that feels easy.

The final breath

At the end of the rest you take one last, full breath and start the hold.

1. Breathe out all the way. Empty your lungs completely.
2. Fill from the bottom up in one smooth movement: belly first, then let the chest open.
3. Stop at “full but comfortable” — around 90% rather than fighting for the last bit. Straining creates tension in the chest and shoulders, and tension uses oxygen.

You may read about packing — using the tongue to push extra air into the lungs. It is a technique for deep diving, taught in person by instructors, and it can injure you if done wrong. Dry tables don’t need it.

In the trainer the final breath has its own cues, “Empty your lungs” and then “Final breath”, timed so the inhale finishes exactly when the hold begins.

Recovery breaths

The moment a hold ends, take three recovery breaths, often called hook breathing:

1. A quick, strong inhale.
2. Pause at the top for about a second, holding the air in.
3. Let it go passively, without blowing or pushing.

Repeat three times, then go back to relaxed breathing. Freediving instructors teach this after every hold, short or long, so that it becomes automatic. After a hard hold — or one that went wrong — those first breaths are what your body should do without having to think.

breathtable always puts three recovery breaths at the start of every rest after a hold. That is also why a rest can’t be shorter than 0:30: the recovery breaths and the final breath have to fit.

One rest, start to finish

1. Three recovery breaths (after a hold)
2. Relaxed breathing at your pace
3. Breathe out fully
4. Final breath
5. Hold

The CO2 table and O2 table guides show how these rests fit into a full table.

Sources

1. SSI — Breathing techniques for freediving: stay calm and dive safer
2. Adam Freediver — The importance of recovery breathing
3. Adam Freediver — Taking a final breath for freediving
4. Gear Patrol — How to hold your breath like a freediver
5. Go Freediving — Training for recreational freediving