I read a bunch of information online and decided to put my trust in this four-week process by Ian Donald (an AIDA master freediving instructor and author).

I followed Ian’s c02 and O2 tables pretty much to a tee except I did all my breath holds on land as I didn’t want to risk passing out in the pool. By the end of the programme, you’re spending 80 minutes a day on the tables so if you want to train in the water you need someone just as keen or very patient.

On the last three days in my final round, I took a little longer than the two-minute recovery I had programmed into the STAmina app so I paused the app for another minute to fully recover and completely relax. The app was super helpful and easy to manually add the tables.

Achieving my five minute goal wasn’t easy to be honest. It was an absolute mind game, especially once I got into the > four minute days.

I had been doing Wim Hoff (WHM) breathing for 18 months leading into this training routine so I was able to hold my breath for just over two minutes without any warm up rounds. I put my faith in Ian’s tables and gave it a crack.

If you can do a two minute breath hold then you too will be able to achieve five minutes in less than a months time.

Relaxing is the key, it’s the only way you can do it.

Good luck.