How Athletic Breathwork Improves Performance, Recovery, and Mental Control
- Brainz Magazine
- Dec 5
- 8 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Rosanna Holmström is a breathwork facilitator, public speaker, and cybersecurity professional. She teaches leaders and high performers how to regulate their inner state and access clarity, resilience, and sustainable performance.
What if one of the most powerful performance tools you’ll ever train isn’t strength, speed, or mindset, but your breath? In elite sport, where milliseconds, focus, and recovery determine outcomes, athletic breathwork is quietly becoming a competitive edge. And once you feel what it does to your body and nervous system, there’s no going back.
What is athletic breathwork?
Athletic breathwork is the intentional use of breathing techniques to improve performance, recovery, and mental control. We train strength, endurance, explosiveness, and technique. But very few athletes are taught to train the system that controls all of it, the nervous system. And your breath is the remote control to that system.
Fast, shallow breathing signals danger to the brain. Slow, controlled breathing signals safety. That signal alone can determine whether you move with clarity or panic, control or collapse, precision or chaos.
Why breathwork changes performance
In high-intensity sport, the body naturally shifts into fight-or-flight. That response is normal. The real issue arises when we cannot efficiently return from that first stress response.
Through controlled breathing, we can influence:
Heart rate
Blood pressure
Muscle tension
Focus and decision-making
Stress-hormone output
A 2025 randomized crossover study, The Effects of Slow Breathing during Inter‑Set Recovery on Power Performance in the Barbell Back Squat, demonstrated that slow breathing between sets helps reduce heart rate and blood pressure, and improves recovery markers in resistance-trained athletes. But beyond the science, athletes feel it immediately. They recover faster. They stay clearer. They don’t mentally spiral under pressure.
This same nervous-system principle is also shaping leadership and business performance, as explored in my Brainz article: “How Breathwork Is Changing The Corporate World And Why Leaders Can’t Ignore It.”
CO₂ tolerance
We often interpret breathlessness as a lack of oxygen. In reality, performance breakdown under pressure is far more often driven by carbon dioxide (CO₂), not oxygen.
CO₂ is what regulates breathing urgency, nervous system response, and oxygen delivery at the tissue level. When this system is misunderstood or under-trained, athletes lose clarity, technical precision, and recovery capacity under stress.
What happens when CO₂ is too low
Under pressure, many athletes shift into fast, shallow, mouth-breathing. This rapidly lowers CO₂ levels in the blood, a state called hypocapnia. Low CO₂ creates a cascade of performance limitations:
Constricted blood vessels
Reduced oxygen delivery to muscles and the brain
Increased heart rate and panic signaling
Loss of fine motor control
Decreased cognitive clarity
This is why an athlete can feel dizzy, panicked, disconnected, or “out of air”, even when oxygen is still present in the bloodstream.
The Bohr Effect
This dynamic is explained by the Bohr Effect, a foundational principle of respiratory physiology.
When CO₂ levels are balanced → oxygen is released efficiently to working muscles and the brain
When CO₂ drops too low → oxygen binds too tightly to hemoglobin and fails to unload where it’s needed
This creates the paradox many athletes experience. You can have plenty of oxygen in your blood and still be oxygen-starved in performance.
What happens when CO₂ rises
During hard effort, CO₂ naturally increases. This raises breathing urgency, muscle acidity, and neural stress signaling
The difference between athletes is not whether CO₂ rises, it’s how the nervous system interprets it.
Low CO₂ tolerance → panic, rushing, loss of technique
High CO₂ tolerance → calm focus, controlled breathing, sustained execution
This is why some athletes lose control when fatigue hits, while others remain calm.
Why CO₂ tolerance is a hidden performance skill and how to train it
Training CO₂ tolerance means training the nervous system’s relationship to pressure. Instead of interpreting rising internal stress as danger, the system learns something radically different. Rising CO₂ is information, not threat.
That single shift creates profound performance advantages:
Calmness under pressure
Clearer decisions during fatigue
Faster recovery between rounds and intervals
Higher discomfort tolerance
Sharper focus during chaos
Reduced panic response
As I often say:
“If you can remain calm in high CO₂, you can remain calm in almost any stressful situation in your life.”
How CO₂ tolerance is built in athletic breathwork
CO₂ tolerance is not trained by pushing harder. It’s trained by staying relaxed while internal pressure rises. In athletic breathwork, this is developed through:
Nasal breathing under load: Keeping the mouth closed during warm-ups, conditioning, and drilling gently raises CO₂ and stabilizes both heart rate and nervous system control.
Apnea training: Breath holds, especially after the exhale, are one of the most direct ways to train CO₂ tolerance. We teach the body to stay soft and clear while pressure builds. This is trained at rest, between strength sets, and between high-intensity intervals.
Dynamic breath holds: Dynamic breath holds, for example, during walking, light drills, or controlled efforts, make CO₂ rise faster than at rest. That’s the whole point. We’re teaching the body to tolerate higher CO₂ levels while still moving with control. Instead of panicking when the internal pressure spikes, you practice staying relaxed, technical, and present inside that rising
intensity.
Slow breathing during recovery: Extended nasal exhales, and slow-paced breathing retrain the system to downshift fast. Over time, the body stops interpreting internal pressure as a threat and starts interpreting it as manageable intensity. That is the difference between reacting under stress and executing under pressure.
What the science confirms
Recent research now strongly supports what athletes experience firsthand.
A 2024 randomized controlled study on semi-elite swimmers showed that slow, paced breathing (6 breaths per minute) significantly improved physiological regulation and perceived recovery over seven weeks.
A 2023 study in Frontiers in Physiology demonstrated that respiratory control directly improves pulmonary function and circulatory stability under physical load, confirming the role of breathing in performance adaptation.
Together, these findings point to one clear conclusion. Athletic performance is not determined by oxygen supply alone, it is shaped by how effectively the nervous system tolerates CO₂ while staying regulated. That is the real competitive edge.
How I use breathwork in my own training
I come from an eight-year background in kickboxing, and today, breathwork is woven into everything I do physically.
I use it:
In warm-ups and during heavy lifting
In intense treadmill intervals to maintain control
Between high-intensity rounds for faster recovery
After training to bring my pulse and blood pressure down
Many people experience that if they train late in the evening, their heart rate stays elevated for hours. Sleep is disturbed. The nervous system never truly downshifts.
With breathwork, we can shift back into the parasympathetic state within seconds, instead of staying activated for the rest of the night. This is one of the most underestimated performance and recovery skills in sport.
Elite athletes who use breathwork
More elite athletes are now openly integrating breathwork and nasal breathing into their training and recovery.
Rickson Gracie, widely regarded as one of the greatest Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners of all time, has written extensively about the role of breath in his book Breathe: A Life in Flow. For Rickson, breathwork is not a supplement to performance, it is the foundation for calm, control, and dominance under pressure.
Olympic boxer Harry Garside has also spoken publicly about how breathwork helped him regulate anxiety, sharpen focus, and stay emotionally steady under competition stress.
Within endurance sports, nasal breathing and mouth taping have gained significant traction. Elite endurance athletes, including ultra-runners and marathon competitors, use mouth tape during sleep and nasal breathing during training to improve respiratory efficiency, recovery, and CO₂ tolerance.
The four pillars of athletic breathwork
Performance
Breath directly influences power, explosiveness, technique, and endurance. When breathing becomes shallow and rushed, oxygen efficiency drops, decision-making is impacted, and technique deteriorates under fatigue. When breathing stays stable and controlled, athletes preserve precision, energy, and output even as intensity rises.
Mental control
The breath regulates the nervous system, and the nervous system regulates the mind. Athletes who master their breathing remain calmer, think more clearly, and avoid the mental collapse that often comes when pressure peaks.
Stress resilience
CO₂ tolerance determines how the body and mind respond to discomfort. Higher tolerance builds composure under pressure. Lower tolerance accelerates stress spirals and panic responses. This is why some athletes lose control when intensity spikes, while others remain steady and precise.
Recovery
The athlete who can downshift fastest after high-intensity moments gains the greatest long-term advantage. Breathwork activates the parasympathetic nervous system, lowering heart rate, stress hormones, and muscle tension. As a result, recovery becomes faster, deeper, and more complete.
A simple athletic breathwork framework
Activation (before training)
Used to sharpen focus, prepare the nervous system, and prime the body without overstimulation.
Light interval breathing: Short, rhythmic breathing cycles that wake up the nervous system and increase alertness without creating stress.
Breath holds: Breath holds after the exhale to raise CO₂ slightly and stimulate oxygen delivery, focus, and readiness.
360° diaphragmatic expansion (Intra-abdominal pressure): Breathing into the belly and lower back to create deep core stability, better bracing, and more efficient force transfer.
Control (during effort)
Used to maintain precision, composure, and mental clarity under rising intensity.
Nasal breathing (for as long as possible): Keeps the nervous system calmer, improves oxygen efficiency, and slows panic-driven breathing.
CO₂-tolerance drills: Train the body to stay relaxed while CO₂ rises, preventing panic and loss of technique under fatigue.
Controlled breathing between rounds: Quickly lowers heart rate and restores clarity so the next round starts from control, not chaos.
Recovery (after effort)
Used to downshift the nervous system, accelerate recovery, and stabilize the body after intensity.
Physiological sigh: A double nasal inhale followed by a long exhale through the mouth to rapidly drop stress levels and heart rate.
Extended nasal exhales: Long, slow exhales activate the parasympathetic nervous system and deepen recovery.
Slow 5–5 breathing: Inhale through the nose for five seconds, exhale five seconds to synchronize heart and brain and stabilize the nervous system.
Box breathing (4–4–4–4): Breathe in through the nose for 4 seconds → Hold for 4 → Exhale through the nose for 4 → Hold at the bottom for 4.
This technique restores emotional and physiological balance after hard sessions or competition.
Why breathwork is the competitive edge
For decades, sport has glorified pushing harder, grinding longer, and overriding the body’s signals. But the athletes who last and the ones who rise when it matters most are not the ones who ignore their nervous system. They are the ones who can regulate it.
Because when you can control your breath under pressure, you can control your body under fatigue. You can think clearly when others panic. You can recover faster when others spiral. You can stay centered when chaos hits.
Athletic breathwork doesn’t replace strength, speed, or skill, it weaves them together. It is the difference between reacting and responding. Between burning out and building longevity. Between surviving intensity and mastering it.
Working with the breath isn’t new, it’s ancient. We’re simply remembering what the body has always known. And sport is finally catching up.
If you’re an athlete, coach, or organisation ready to integrate athletic breathwork for performance, recovery, and mental resilience, you’re welcome to connect with me.
Read more from Rosanna Holmström
Rosanna Holmström, Breathwork Expert and International Speaker
Rosanna Holmström is a breathwork facilitator, public speaker, and cybersecurity professional. She helps leaders, founders, and individuals recovering from burnout regulate their inner world and access clarity, resilience, and sustainable energy. Through her brand Breathe With Rosie, she integrates breathwork and nervous system awareness into leadership, culture, and personal transformation.
