Train Your Breathing in Just 10 Minutes a Day

The Oxygen Advantage® Breath Hold Challenge

The Oxygen Advantage® Breath Hold Challenge is a free 4-week guided programme using structured breath holds during movement to improve breathing efficiency, tolerance to breathlessness, and resilience under physical and mental stress.

✔ Less than 10 minutes a day
✔ Can be done anywhere
✔ Track measurable progress

Start the Free 4-Week Challenge

Safety Note
This challenge is designed for healthy adults. Please read the safety guidelines in the Intro Guide before starting.

A Welcome Message from Patrick McKeown

Why This Challenge?

Breathing is something we do every moment of the day, yet very few people ever train it. When you hold your breath after a normal exhale and move your body, oxygen levels begin to fall, carbon dioxide begins to rise, and the body experiences air hunger. This creates a controlled stress that stimulates the body to adapt.

With regular practice, breath holds can improve tolerance to breathlessness, breathing efficiency during movement, oxygen delivery to tissues, and the ability to remain calm under physical or mental stress.

The goal is not to push breath holding to extremes. The aim is to challenge the body briefly and then recover calmly through the nose.

Just five breath holds a day can begin to change how your breathing system responds to effort and stress. The exercises take only a few minutes and can be practised almost anywhere — from your kitchen to your daily walk.

What You Will Improve

Tolerance to Breathlessness

Breathlessness is one of the strongest drivers of perceived effort during exercise. Training breath holds improves tolerance to rising carbon dioxide, helping the same workload feel easier.

Oxygen Delivery

Breath holds create a brief rise in carbon dioxide and mild drop in oxygen saturation, helping oxygen release more effectively from haemoglobin to working muscles.

Calm Under Pressure

Learning to remain relaxed during strong air hunger trains the nervous system to stay composed under physical and mental stress.
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What You’ll Receive:
Introductory Guide

Explains the science, safety considerations, and how the challenge works.

Weekly Training Guides

Step-by-step guidance for each week of the challenge.

Instructional Videos

Demonstrations from Patrick McKeown, plus practical guidance to help you perform the exercises correctly.

The Two Metrics You’ll Track

Maximum Breathlessness Test (MBT)

The MBT measures how many paces you can walk while holding the breath after a normal exhale.

Oxygen Saturation (SpO₂)

A pulse oximeter allows you to observe how oxygen saturation changes during stronger breath holds and how quickly it recovers.

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Why Breath Hold Training Works

Breath holding during movement creates a brief and controlled exposure to hypoxia (lower oxygen) and hypercapnia (higher carbon dioxide).

This combination stimulates several physiological responses that improve breathing efficiency and tolerance to breathlessness.
Carbon dioxide improves oxygen delivery

As carbon dioxide rises, oxygen is released more easily from haemoglobin into the tissues. This is known as the Bohr effect and helps working muscles access oxygen more effectively.

Breath holds improve tolerance to breathlessness

The urge to breathe is driven mainly by rising carbon dioxide, not falling oxygen. Breath hold training improves tolerance to this signal, helping reduce the sensation of breathlessness during effort.

The diving reflex supports oxygen conservation

Breath holding can activate the mammalian diving reflex, helping conserve oxygen by slowing the heart rate and prioritising blood flow to vital organs.

The spleen can release additional red blood cells

Strong breath holds can stimulate splenic contraction, temporarily releasing additional red blood cells into circulation and increasing oxygen carrying capacity.

Breathing muscles get trained too

Breath holding places a controlled load on the diaphragm and breathing muscles, helping improve their strength and endurance.

Research on Breath Hold Training

A 2024 study published in Frontiers in Physiology examined the effect of dynamic breath holds integrated into a warm-up routine in elite rugby athletes.

Researchers found that incorporating breath holds during movement significantly improved peak oxygen uptake (VO₂peak) during a subsequent exercise test.

Interestingly, improvements occurred without changes in red blood cell count, suggesting that breath hold training can enhance performance through improved breathing efficiency and tolerance to physiological stress.

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Built on Over 20 Years of Breathing Research & Practice

Built on Over 20 Years of Breathing Research and Practice

The Oxygen Advantage®, developed by breathing expert Patrick McKeown, is based on more than two decades of clinical work, respiratory physiology research, and training with athletes worldwide.

Oxygen Advantage breathing techniques have been used globally to help people:

• improve breathing efficiency
• reduce breathlessness
• increase resilience to stress
• improve recovery and performance

Breath holding during movement is a core element of this method.

This challenge brings these principles together into a structured four-week programme.

How the Challenge Works

Practise 5 Breath Holds Per Day

Each day you perform five breath holds during light movement such as walking or gentle jogging. After a normal exhale, you hold the breath while moving until strong air hunger appears, then recover with calm nasal breathing.

Track Your Progress

You will use two simple markers. The Maximum Breathlessness Test (MBT) measures how many paces you can walk while holding the breath. A pulse oximeter shows how oxygen saturation changes during and after stronger holds.

Build Adaptation Over 4 Weeks

Over four weeks the body gradually adapts to this stimulus. Breath hold capacity improves, breathing becomes more efficient, and recovery becomes faster and calmer.
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Ready to Discover What Your Breath Can Really Do?

Start the Free 4-Week Challenge

Safety Note
This challenge is designed for healthy adults. Please read the safety guidelines in the Intro Guide before starting.

FAQ

This is a structured 4-week plan using breath holding during movement (walking → light jogging) to create a controlled, temporary drop in oxygen saturation and a rise in carbon dioxide.

You’ll track two simple markers:

  • MBT (Maximum Breathlessness Test): how many steps you can walk on a breath hold
  • SpO₂ (pulse oximeter): your oxygen saturation during/after strong holds

It’s not about willpower. It’s about adaptation.

Daily Task:
– 5 breath holds while walking, warming up, or light jogging
– Measure MBT (Maximum Breathlessness Test)
– Track SpO₂ with a pulse oximeter (aim for ~85–88%)

Weekly Goals:
– Increase your MBT by 5–10 paces
– Submit progress (optional)
– Get weekly tips, education, and demo videos from OA

Breath holding with movement creates a safe, natural stressor that stimulates:

  • CO₂ rises → blood vessels widen, circulation improves, and oxygen is released more readily to tissues (Bohr effect)
  • O₂ drops (briefly) → the body learns to use oxygen more efficiently
  • Breathing muscles get trained → stronger diaphragm and improved breathing economy
  • The diving response is engaged → it strengthens below ~90% SpO₂ and intensifies near ~85% (in many people)
  • The spleen may contract → temporarily releasing extra red blood cells into circulation (a short-term boost in oxygen carrying capacity)

The result for many people: less breathlessness, lower perceived effort, faster recovery, better composure under pressure.

Yes. A pulse oximeter is required for this challenge. It allows you to safely monitor your blood oxygen saturation (SpO₂) during breath holds.

Use code BREATH15 for 15% off the Oxygen Advantage® pulse oximeter.

* US participants: Due to distribution restrictions, Oxygen Advantage® pulse oximeters are not available for shipping to the United States. Please purchase a pulse oximeter from Amazon or a local medical supply retailer.

A pulse oximeter is a small device that clips onto your finger and measures the level of oxygen in your blood. This measurement is called SpO₂ (oxygen saturation).

During breath holds, oxygen levels may temporarily drop while carbon dioxide rises. This is part of the training stimulus used in the Oxygen Advantage® Breath Hold Challenge.

▶ Watch this short video: Pulse Oximeter Explained

Using a pulse oximeter helps ensure that breath holds remain controlled, measurable, and safe throughout the challenge.

  • No hyperventilation
  • No SpO₂ drops below 80%
  • Always post-exhalation (normal breath out before hold)
  • Backed by over 20 years of real-world application
  • Grounded in research + field-tested by 13,000+ instructors and users worldwide

This isn’t about shock. It’s about strategic adaptation.

This challenge is for you if you want to:

  • Train smarter, not harder
  • Improve your breathing for sport, health or stress resilience
  • Build mental and physical toughness — safely
  • Push your performance without expensive gear or altitude chambers

✅ Runners, fighters, athletes, gym-goers
✅ Coaches and instructors
✅ Breathwork enthusiasts and wellness pros
✅ Anyone looking for a new way to challenge their system and improve daily energy

No previous breath training required. Just a willingness to show up and hold your breath.

Please do NOT join if you:

  • Are pregnant
  • Have panic disorder, severe anxiety, or cardiovascular/neurological illness
  • *Are over 60
  • Have a history of fainting, recent surgery, concussion, or severe illness
  • Have a BOLT score <12s or uncontrolled asthma

Always train in a safe space and never in water or while driving.

Over 60:
Participants over 60 should practise only the warm-up versions of the exercises and limit breath holds to ~20 paces, applying personal judgement depending on health and training history.

No.

In Oxygen Advantage®, breath holds are:

  • Done after a normal exhale
  • Done without hyperventilation
  • Performed with clear safety boundaries
  • Monitored with a pulse oximeter

We are not trying to remove CO₂.
We are training tolerance to it.

The MBT measures how many paces you can walk while holding your breath after a normal exhale.

It reflects:

  • Tolerance to breathlessness
  • Sensitivity to rising carbon dioxide
  • Nervous system response to internal stress

You’ll measure your MBT at the start of the challenge and track improvements each week.

Watch Patrick Demonstrate the MBT

For the challenge exercises, the breath hold is done after a normal exhale.

This ensures:

• carbon dioxide rises naturally
• the body’s natural urge to breathe remains intact
• the exercise stays safe and controlled

Breath holds should never be preceded by hyperventilation.

Very little.

You will perform 5 breath holds per day, which usually takes 5–10 minutes total.

You can do them:

  • During a walk
  • As part of your warm-up
  • At home or in the gym

Yes — if you are a healthy adult and follow the guidelines.

Week 1 starts gently.

You build progressively over 4 weeks.

If your BOLT is low (below ~12 seconds), you should first improve your foundational breathing before attempting strong breath holds.

Many participants notice improvements in breath hold capacity, tolerance to breathlessness, nasal breathing, and recovery during exercise. Individual results vary depending on consistency and starting breathing patterns.