Good Intentions. Wrong Execution.
Breathing training is now on the radar of most high performance programs. The problem is that a lot of it is done badly.
Athletes copy a drill from social media, skip the detail that made it work, and then decide breathing training does nothing. Here are the six mistakes we see most often, and what the research says to do instead.
The Breath Hold Mistakes
Breath hold sprint training is the most powerful tool in the method, and the one most often done wrong. Three errors account for most of the problems.
Mistake 1: Holding the Breath on Full Lungs
The instinct before a breath hold is to take a big gulp of air. For breath hold sprint training, that instinct is wrong.
Ait Ali Braham et al. (2024) compared the two directly in 24 trained female soccer players over 6 weeks. One group held after a normal exhale, at low lung volume. Another held at high lung volume. A third breathed normally.
Sprints completed to exhaustion rose 17% in the low lung volume group, from 19.3 to 22.6. The high lung volume group improved about 6%. The normal breathing group was essentially unchanged.
Oxygen saturation at the end of training sprints averaged 92.1% with low lung volume holds, against about 97% in the other groups. Full lungs simply carry too much oxygen to create the same training stimulus.
Fix it: breathe out normally, not forcefully, then hold. The hold lives at the bottom of a relaxed exhale.
Mistake 2: Expecting a Faster Top Speed
Breath hold sprint training is sometimes sold as a speed hack. The evidence does not support that.
In highly trained rugby players, Fornasier Santos et al. (2018) found that seven sessions over 4 weeks lifted sprints to exhaustion from 9.1 to 14.9, a 64% increase. Maximal velocity did not change.
A 2025 meta analysis by Précart et al. pooled 10 studies and 199 trained athletes. It found no effect on best sprint time, and a moderate effect on sprint decrement, meaning fatigue resistance across repeated efforts.
Fix it: sell the method for what it does. It helps athletes hold their speed in the back end of a passage of play. It does not make the first sprint faster.
Mistake 3: Overbreathing Before a Hold
Some athletes power breathe before a hold to extend it. This is a habit worth killing early.
Fast, deep breathing drives CO2 down. CO2 is the main signal that tells you to breathe, so blowing it off delays the urge while oxygen keeps falling.
Pearn, Franklin and Peden (2015) describe exactly this mechanism in hypoxic blackout, a distinct and preventable cause of drowning. Hyperventilating before submersion overrides the body's CO2 alarm, and the swimmer can lose consciousness without warning.
Fix it: no power breathing before holds. Ever. And breath hold work stays on land, well away from pools and open water.
The Everyday Breathing Mistakes
The next two errors are less dramatic, but they quietly undermine a program and erode trust with sports science staff.
Mistake 4: Forcing Nasal Only Breathing at Maximal Intensity
Nasal breathing is the foundation of the method at rest, in warm ups and during easy aerobic work. It is not a rule to enforce at every intensity.
Dallam et al. (2018) followed recreational runners after six months of nasal only training. VO2max was about 7% lower when breathing through the nose compared with the mouth, a difference that was not statistically significant.
Nasal breathing did produce a lower breathing frequency, a lower respiratory exchange ratio and a lower ventilatory equivalent for oxygen. In other words, breathing became more economical, but there was no sign of a higher ceiling.
Note who was studied: recreational runners, not elite team sport athletes. The finding is useful, but it should not be stretched.
Fix it: use nasal breathing to build economy and control at low to moderate intensity. When the work is maximal, let athletes breathe however they need to.
Mistake 5: Treating BOLT as a Performance Test
The BOLT score measures how long you can comfortably hold after a normal exhale. It is a good self check of breathlessness and CO2 sensitivity, and a simple way to track how an athlete's breathing is trending.
What it is not is a validated predictor of performance. In trained athletes, BOLT has not shown a meaningful link with performance test results.
A rugby forward with a modest BOLT can still have an outstanding repeated sprint profile. The number tells you about breathing comfort, not about the engine.
Fix it: use BOLT as a daily or weekly check in, alongside your normal monitoring. Never use it to pick a team or judge fitness.
The Programming Mistake
Mistake 6: Too Much, Too Random
The studies that worked were structured. They ran for a defined block, usually two sessions a week for 3 to 6 weeks, with set numbers of sprints, set recoveries and set rest between sets.
The rugby protocol used 2 to 3 sets of 6 to 8 sprints over 40 metres, with 22 to 25 seconds between sprints and 3 minutes between sets. That is a precise dose, not an occasional hold thrown into a drill.
The basketball and soccer trials followed the same pattern: a fixed block, two sessions a week, clear sets and clear recoveries. The effect came from consistency over weeks, not from intensity on a single day.
The opposite approach, a few random holds whenever the session feels easy, has never been tested. It also makes it impossible to know whether anything changed.
Fix it: program breath hold sprints like any other high intensity stimulus. Plan the block, progress the volume, test before and after with a repeated sprint test, and keep every session supervised.
Safety note: 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.
FOR ELITE ATHLETES, THIS CAN HELP YOU
✔ Get more from breath hold sprints by holding at low lung volume
✔ Improve repeated sprint ability and fatigue resistance with a structured block
✔ Make easy aerobic breathing more economical through nasal breathing
✔ Avoid the overbreathing habit linked to hypoxic blackout
Performance takeawayThe method is simple. The detail is what makes it work.
This is not wellness. This is your competitive edge.
Want this in your program? Enquire about Vincere Protocol for your team.
