Dry apnea training on
iPhone and Apple Watch Ultra
Breath hold training on land, on your iPhone and your Apple Watch Ultra. Find your max breath hold, run CO2 and O2 tables built from it, and track how your holds change. All of it is free.
How Train works
Dry apnea is breath hold training out of the water, built around tables: rounds of a breathe up followed by a hold.
Train, a tab in the FreeDive Ultra iPhone app, builds your CO2 and O2 tables from one number: your max breath hold. Progress then shows how your holds, your first contraction and your heart rate change.
Before you start
Train on land only, and follow these rules every time. The app shows them before your first session, on iPhone and on the watch.
Sit or lie down
Somewhere you cannot fall if you feel faint.
Never in or near water
Not in a bath, a pool or the sea, and never while driving.
Do not hyperventilate
No fast or extra-deep breaths before a hold. Take a few slow recovery breaths after every hold.
Stop if you feel unwell
Stop if your muscles start to twitch or shake. Do not combine with exercise. Ask a doctor first if you have a heart or lung condition, epilepsy, or are pregnant.
Start with a breath hold test
- Open Train and tap Test on the max breath hold card.
- Breathe up slowly for two minutes, or tap Skip breathe up when you are ready.
- Hold until you need to breathe, then tap Stop.
- Your result becomes your max. Beat your best and it says New personal best.
Already know your max? Tap Edit on the Train tab and type it in. If you ever hold longer on the watch, Train offers to use that as your max.
CO2 and O2 tables
Both tables are 8 rounds, at Easy, Normal or Hard.
Same hold, shrinking rests
Builds tolerance to CO2 and the urge to breathe. Every hold is half your max on Normal (40% on Easy, 60% on Hard). The breathe up starts at 2:00 and loses 15 seconds a round, down to 0:15.
Same rest, lengthening holds
Builds tolerance to low oxygen toward your max. The breathe up stays at 2:00 while the holds grow round by round, from 40% of your max to 70% on Normal (60% on Easy, 80% on Hard).
Example for a 3:00 max.
On Normal with a 3:00 max, the CO2 table is eight holds of 1:30 with breathe ups of 2:00, 1:45, 1:30, 1:15, 1:00, 0:45, 0:30 and 0:15. The O2 table keeps every breathe up at 2:00, and its holds run 1:12, 1:20, 1:27, 1:35, 1:43, 1:51, 1:58 and 2:06.
Make your own table
A Custom table is not scaled to your max. Set 3 to 50 rounds, a hold of 0:15 to 9:00 and a breathe up of 0:15 to 4:00. To make it progress, grow the hold or shrink the breathe up by 5 to 30 seconds a round.
Tap each contraction
What is a contraction?
During a hold your diaphragm starts to tighten on its own, in small pulses. Each pulse is a contraction.
Tap Contraction each time you feel one. The later the first one comes, the better your CO2 tolerance, and Progress tracks your 1st contraction from every table.
Voice, sound and vibration
On iPhone, Train calls out each phase, so you can close your eyes and follow it.
Voice
Names the round and the phase, gives the time left every 30 seconds during a hold, and counts down ten, three, two, one at the end of each phase.
Beeps
The same cues as tones.
Silent
No sound. The phone still vibrates with each cue.
On the watch, a tap on your wrist
The watch taps your wrist when a hold starts, when a new round starts and when the table is done.
On your iPhone or on your watch
Both save the same kind of session, and both count in Progress. Train runs on iPad too, with voice cues; heart rate needs your watch with an iPhone.
Voice cues and your heart rate
Wear your Apple Watch Ultra while a table runs on your iPhone and your heart rate shows as you go. HealthKit Integration needs to be on in FreeDive Ultra, under Settings, General, and Health turned on for FreeDive in the Health app.
The same tables on your wrist
Tap Start Dry Apnea and choose a table. Your max and your tables come from Train on iPhone.
On the watch
Start Dry Apnea
Tap Start Dry Apnea on the watch and pick from one list: Free Hold, the CO2 Table and O2 Table at your difficulty, and your Custom Table.
Try it: tap the watch screen to start and stop a hold.
Free Hold is one hold with no table. The timer runs in cyan with your max underneath, and says Past your max once you go beyond it.
A table on the watch
It shows the round, your heart rate and the whole table as a strip. During each hold a large Contraction button appears, with Pause, Skip and Stop along the bottom.
Each watch session goes to Apple Fitness as a workout with heart rate.
Progress
Open Progress from the Train tab and pick 7 days, 30 days, 90 days or All.
Your numbers
Longest hold against your best ever, heart-rate drop, 1st contraction and time held.
Trends and the calendar
Your breath hold tests, a trend chart and the days you trained.
After every table
Total hold time, heart-rate drop, contractions and every round.
Equalise
Train has a third part, Equalise, on iPhone and iPad. Learn how equalising changes with depth, plan your mouthfill, then practise the movements on land.
The progression
Valsalva, Frenzel, mouthfill and reverse packing, in order, with the depth each one suits and how it works.
Mouthfill calculator
Set the depth you take your charge and the deepest you equalise from it, then try a deeper charge and see how far it could take you.
Dry drills
Frenzel reps, the Frenzel control ladder, a mouthfill rehearsal and reverse packing, guided by voice. Practise on land only, seated or lying down.
Common questions
Is dry apnea training free?
Yes. The Train tab, the breath hold test, every table, the sessions they record, Progress and Equalise are all free.
Do I need an Apple Watch?
No. The breath hold test and every table run on your iPhone or iPad alone. Wear your Apple Watch Ultra while a table runs on your iPhone and it adds your heart rate.
Does Auto Launch start it?
No, Auto Launch is for the water. Start dry training from the Train tab, or with Start Dry Apnea on the watch.
Which Apple Watch does it work on?
Every Apple Watch Ultra: the original, Ultra 2, Ultra 3 and Ultra 4.
Find your max breath hold
Download FreeDive Ultra, sit down and take your breath hold test.