Have you ever thought about breathing training?

Rickson Gracie has a special approach to breathing.

Rickson Gracie and all members of the Gracie use a special method of breathing when doing Jiu-Jitsu: Percussive breathing. This involves a normal inhalation followed by several short, sharp exhalations (saying shh, shh, shh, shh, shh). These are actually rythmic diaphragmatic contractions.

This was one of the Gracie family’s best kept secret for many years.

Percussive breathing techniques can increase the expansion of the ribcage and the amount of air exchanged through the lungs. The deeper you breathe, the more oxygen you bring into your system.

Percussive breathing is defined as “breath with sound and rhythm.” While a regular breath is seldom noticed, percussive breathing sounds like an orchestra. The rhythmic pattern of inhaling and exhaling is more challenging than it first appears. When the exhalations get longer, you are working to improve your cardiovascular capacity.

How to do Percussive breathing:

Inhale: Inhale deeply, using accordion breathing. Accordion breathing is lateral chest breathing. Imagine that your rib cage is an accordion. On the inhale, the accordion expands laterally, and on the exhale, the accordion squeezes back together.

Exhale: Using percussive breathing, exhale for 5 beats (saying shh, shh, shh, shh, shh).
Percussive breathing is forced exhalation using the abdominal muscles; think of forcing the air out in short percussive blows.

In this latest Joe Rogan podcast, Rickson talks about the importance of breathing:

Gert Leroy is a freedriving instructor and he reacted to what Rickson was saying about breathing and specifically breathing for diving.

Rickson told Joe Rogan:

“When you go diving, you should hyperventilate. I increase the blood oxygenation in the blood and I triple the amount of time I am under water.”

In this video, we can see Rickson was able to hold his breath for a little over 2 minutes under water which is not particularly impressive as master freedivers can often hold their breath for over 10 mins:

For Leroy, what Rickson says about breathing for freediving and breathing in general is totally false and he goes into great detail into debunking his claims: