Sixty Minutes Of Short Bursts. Breathing Decides The Last Ten.
Netball is relentless. Drive, stop, change direction, lead again, defend the next pass. Every centre pass resets the sprint.
The players who own the final quarter are the ones still hitting their leads at full intensity when everyone else is a step late.
That repeat effort quality is what breath hold sprint training targets. Control your breath. Control the result.
Why Breathing Limits Repeat Efforts
Breathing is not free. In a laboratory study during maximal exercise, Harms and colleagues (1997) showed that the work of the breathing muscles can compromise blood flow to the working legs.
Think of a wing defence shadowing her player through the third lead in a row. It is a useful reminder that breathing and leg fatigue are linked when intensity is at its highest.
To be clear, that study did not test breath hold training. It explains why breathing matters at high intensity. It does not show that breath holds fix it.
Where The Evidence Stands For Netball
We will say it plainly. We could not find a published study of breath hold training in netball players.
The closest evidence comes from female soccer players and from basketball, another court sport with constant changes of direction. We label it that way throughout.
The Female Athlete Study That Matters Most
Closest evidence, female soccer. Ait Ali Braham and colleagues (2024) ran a six week repeated sprint program with trained female soccer players.
They compared three approaches: sprints with breath holds at low lung volume, sprints with breath holds at high lung volume, and sprints with normal breathing.
Low lung volume means breathing out normally and holding at the bottom of the exhale. This is voluntary hypoventilation at low lung volume, known as VHL: breathe out normally, hold at the bottom of the exhale, then perform the effort.
The results were clear. The low lung volume group increased repeated sprints from 19.3 to 22.6, a 17% gain. The high lung volume group improved by only 6%. The normal breathing group improved by 0.5%.
That detail matters for coaches. Holding your breath after a big inhale is not the same stimulus. The hold at the bottom of the exhale is what produced the largest gain.
Supporting Evidence From The Court
Closest evidence, basketball. Lapointe and colleagues (2020) studied 17 national level basketball players, including five women. Over four weeks both groups added eight repeated sprint sessions with straight line and change of direction sprints, one group using VHL.
On a test of 12 sprints over 30 metres, best sprint time did not clearly change. But the sprint decrement reduced by 24.5% in the VHL group, compared with 5.9% in the normal breathing group.
In plain terms, players held their speed far better across repeated efforts. Their fastest sprint did not get quicker.
A 2025 meta analysis by Précart and colleagues confirmed the pattern across VHL repeated sprint studies: the benefit is mainly in fatigue resistance and repeated sprint ability, not top speed and not VO2max.
These studies are small, and none were in netball. The direction of the evidence is consistent, and that is as far as we take it.
What This Will Not Do
The research does not show higher top speed or a higher VO2max. Anyone selling breath holds as a speed or aerobic capacity fix is overselling it.
It is also not a replacement for conditioning. In every study above, the breath hold group and the comparison group did the same sprint work. Only the breathing changed. The sprints still have to be run.
Composure On The Shot
Slow breathing is a different method from breath hold training, and the evidence is separate.
A 2022 meta analysis by Laborde and colleagues found voluntary slow breathing increases vagally mediated heart rate variability, a marker linked to the body's calming response.
A slow nasal breath before a goal attempt is a sensible routine. We found no study showing it improves shooting accuracy, so we will not claim it does.
How We Program It For A Netball Squad
Nasal breathing in warm ups and drills. Light, slow nasal breathing builds the foundation and teaches players to stay composed with less air.
Breath holds after a normal exhale. Short static holds at low lung volume, full recovery, no straining, before any sprint work.
Low lung volume sprints. Short court sprints and change of direction patterns with the hold at the bottom of the exhale, twice a week across a four to six week block.
Coaching Cues That Work
Exhale, do not empty. Breathe out a normal, relaxed breath. Forcing all the air out is not the target and makes the hold harder to control.
Hold, then go. Start the effort straight after the exhale and keep it short. The hold ends when the effort ends, or earlier.
Recover through the nose where possible. Take the first breath calmly, then settle back into light nasal breathing before the next rep.
Quality over volume. If technique falls apart on the court, the set is over. This is a fatigue resistance drill, not a test of willpower.
Expect discomfort, not distress. Strong air hunger is normal. Dizziness, tingling or confusion are not. Stop immediately.
Test it. A repeated sprint test before and after the block. Track how many quality efforts players complete, not just their fastest.
Safety: never do breath holds in or near water, never while driving and never alone. Stop if you feel dizzy. Get medical clearance first if you are pregnant or have a heart, lung or blood pressure condition.
Simon Kerle has worked with the Queensland Firebirds and is an Advanced Oxygen Advantage instructor. This is not wellness. This is your competitive edge.
FOR ELITE ATHLETES, THIS CAN HELP YOU
✔ Complete more repeated sprints before your speed drops off
✔ Hold your sprint speed across repeated court efforts
✔ Get more from sprint training by holding at the bottom of the exhale
✔ Use a slow breathing routine that shifts heart rate variability toward calm
Performance takeawayNo netball trial exists yet. The closest evidence in female athletes and court sport players points to better repeated sprint ability, not more top speed.
In a game of constant resets, the player who can keep repeating wins the last quarter.
Want this in your program? Enquire about Vincere Protocol for your team.
