Tom Breathes Coaching

How well can you control your breathing as CO₂ rises?

During this test, CO₂ gradually increases, strengthening your drive to breathe. Your respiratory muscles and ribcage have to maintain a slow, controlled release of air as that urge builds.

WHAT YOUR SCORE MEANS

🔴 < 20 seconds POOR - Poor CO2 tolerance (high-risk for anxiety
🟠 20–40s - NEEDS IMPROVEMENT - indicates poor breath control
🟡 40–60s - AVERAGE - Functional but room for improvement
🟢 60–80s - TRAINED - good diaphragmatic control and CO2 tolerance).
🏆 80s+ - ELITE - Optimal efficiency

Why does this matter for fighters and athletes?

Hard exchanges rapidly increase metabolic demand and ventilation. When the exchange finishes, you need to bring your breathing back under control while continuing to move, listen to your corner, and make decisions.

If your breathing becomes chaotic - big gasps, breathing too fast, upper chest dominant breathing - you won’t recover as effectively, you lose composure, and your legs will tire faster.

I train fighters to have better respiratory control which means they can recover their HR quicker, enabling more efficient oxygen delivery to muscles tissues.

This helps them stick to their game plan without panicking, think more clearly under pressure and prevent gassing out.

The Exhale Max gives you an insight into how your respiratory system responds as internal pressure builds.

I got 53 seconds.

What did you get? 👇

The less I try to force a state change, often the more readily it changes…

The trouble with the breathwork world is that breathing is often packaged as a technique for X, Y or Z.

“Do this breath and feel calm.”

That creates an expectation that your state should change.

And when it doesn’t, it can create more frustration, effort and resistance.

If you’re prone to perfectionism 🙋🏻‍♂️, trying to do the technique “right” can add another layer of tension.

Sometimes the starting point for tense-bodied overthinkers isn’t another technique.

It’s letting go of the need to change anything.

Regulation isn’t about staying calm under pressure.

It’s being able to feel the frustration, nerves or intensity without letting it dictate what you do next.

And your breath is one of the most powerful tools you can use to train that skill.

You don’t train your nervous system in the moment you lose your s**t.

By then, you’re already in it.

Breath holding recreates many of the sensations of anxiety in a controlled environment, this gives you a chance to practise staying present instead of reacting.

Train away from the pressure, so the skill is there when the pressure comes.

Your body is always prioritising survival.

And under severe physical stress, breathing wins over other movement.

When your respiratory muscles fatigue, your body redirects blood flow away from your working muscles to support the respiratory muscles.

I train athletes to breathe more efficiently and build respiratory endurance so they can sustain higher levels of performance for longer.

Breathing techniques that work under mild stress don’t work under extreme load. They need to be trained into the body.

Stop chasing calm. Train it.

A lot of breathwork is just chasing a quick state change.�
You feel better… then drop straight back to baseline.

Because the system underneath is still stressed - and the other 20k+ breaths you take that day are still signalling threat, reinforcing the loop.

What actually works is seeing this as training.

This means:

– Bringing awareness to your breath in everyday moments (this is how your system learns)�– Not trying to fix how you feel (that just reinforces avoidance)�– Staying with the right level of discomfort / stillness / focus so your system adapts over time

This is the work I do with my clients.

If you want to explore it, drop me a DM.