Using the apnea trainer software to increase your lung capacity

Although posture, stretching strength training and vacuum bell use are paramount to correcting your PE, increasing your lung capacity can have a positive effect not only on your chest shape but also your overall fitness. Indeed some of the fittest people are those with the largest lung capacities.

In this guide I will show you how to use a simple program to train like a free diver and expand your lung capacity just by holding your breath.

First download the program here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/apneastatictrai/

It’s a zip file which you simply extract with a program like WinRAR. Then you simply run the executable.

You can make a shortcut to the software on your desktop by right clicking on the executable, selecting copy and then right click on your desktop and select “paste shortcut”

When you open the program you will be greeted by this window:

This is where most of the program’s functions lie. I’ll quickly go over it’s features.

The Open and Save buttons allows you to Open and Save sessions. Note that sessions are saved persistently (meaning if you change your settings they will stay that way when you open the program again), so you don’t need to save them if you’re the only one using the program. You can also save the session as an MP3, which allows you to train by listening to it on your preferred media device.

The clock icon on the top right is the calendar, which tracks your completed sessions. After completing a session you will be asked if you want to save it, and you can then review it in the calendar.

The initial data window is where you set the parameters for your session.
Intro: How long the program will wait before it starts the training session.
Initial breath hold: How long you will hold your breath on your first breath hold.
Increase hold by: How much the breath hold will be increased by after each breath hold.
Initial rest time: How much rest you will have between breath holds.
Decrease rest time: How much rest will be decreased after each rest. (I suggest you set this to 0)
Loops: How many breath holds we want in a session.

The play, pause and stop buttons are self explanatory. The heart button allows you to play a heart beat sound during your breath holds which may help you slow down your own heart beat, and the volume slider allows you to adjust the volume of the heart beat sound.

In the center window you have your breathing and hold timers. These are based off of the initial parameters set in the initial data window but can be adjusted manually by clicking on and dragging the little tab at the end of each bar.

The beep every minute checkmark allows you to set a beep every minute of the breath hold.

So now that you now what each button does you just have to set the initial parameters and you can start training.

For the initial breath hold you should put in your maximum breath hold – 10s. So if you can initially only hold your breath for 40s you should set it to 30s. Your max breath hold will increase as the session progresses and your lungs and muscles warm up. Increase this setting by 5-10s each week.

In the increase hold time you should set it for 5s for now, and increase it by 1s each week until your reach 10s, after which you will leave it at that.
Set the initial rest time to 120s and the decrease rest time to 0. You don’t need to change these two setting ever again (unless you decided to do CO2 training, which is not covered by this guide).

For loops I suggest you use 8. If you find that your last breath hold is actually shorter than the previous one then you may decrease this by 1.

And that’s pretty much it. You should train as often as you can, but no more than once a day, preferably on an empty stomach as digestion can reduce your breath hold time.