any input on expanding lungs

Breathing 101: 1- The urge to breathe comes from an increase in partial pressure of C02 in blood. C02 is a by product of complex metabolic systems involving fuel burn and oxygen, at the celular level. Elimination of C02 is necessary to maintain normal pH (acid-base system) of blood. This urge can be dimished by "mental control" and other factors such as opioid (morphine and similars) presence. The mental control part is the one you can train while swimming and snorkeling. You won't make your lungs "better" or your system " better", but you will be able to hold your breath longer with mental training, which would be subsequent to physical training. The danger of mentally being able to hold your breath longer is that somewhere this breath holding will actually cause your oxygen offer to be less than ideal. A not so rare accident in apnea divers is that they stay longer than they should under water and pass out either deep or shallow on the way back when the pressure changes causes a shift in the oxygen content of their brain. This is not usual while swimming on the surface. So the main way to increase your holding your breath capacity is to train for it and thus get mentally able. 2- If you have a lung problem or some disease that has done damage to your alveoli, or if you are trying to increase your alveolar capacity, then you may exercise your lung. The increase in capacity in a normal lung will be minimal. The exercise most commonly used is to blow air out through some resistance device, or Peep (positive end expiratory pressure). Interestingly, while swimming we expire against a slight pressure under water which on its own causes an increase in alveoli capacity and/or efficacy. Exhaling slowly through your lips will also help. 3- All this above is in accordance to what Jim and Fortress posted. The oxygen usage and carbon dioxide elimination systems are complex and involve many variables, the least of which to us normal healthy swimmers is the lung part of the process. Happy breathings, billy fanstone P.S. Jim, I was at 5,000 meters altitude and stayed around that altitude for about a week. My pulse oxymeter read about 86. I didn't die, nor did I feel much, except for the occasional longer than usual sigh and light-headness. My red blood cell didn't have time to increase but my physiological system started to adapt as my heart rate came down about 20 beats from 30 beats above my expected heart rate for any given effort. I was hiking in the Everest region. I had a polar and altitude watch turned on most of the time. When my patients breathing air and with some narcotics i.v. drop their oxymetry to below 90 going towards 80, I just watch the curve, or how long they stay low until they start climbing back to the 90s. No big deal. They don't even start to turn blue, which was the older method used to determine oxygenation. Hypoxic training would work out for endurance swimming, not for the usual pool swimming competition. You find blood doping (EPO) in endurance runners or Tour de France type guys. Swimmers have other variables in getting faster or lasting longer than the oxygen part of the problem.

Breathing 101: 1- The urge to breathe comes from an increase in partial pressure of C02 in blood. C02 is a by product of complex metabolic systems involving fuel burn and oxygen, at the celular level. Elimination of C02 is necessary to maintain normal pH (acid-base system) of blood. This urge can be dimished by "mental control" and other factors such as opioid (morphine and similars) presence. The mental control part is the one you can train while swimming and snorkeling. You won't make your lungs "better" or your system " better", but you will be able to hold your breath longer with mental training, which would be subsequent to physical training. The danger of mentally being able to hold your breath longer is that somewhere this breath holding will actually cause your oxygen offer to be less than ideal. A not so rare accident in apnea divers is that they stay longer than they should under water and pass out either deep or shallow on the way back when the pressure changes causes a shift in the oxygen content of their brain. This is not usual while swimming on the surface. So the main way to increase your holding your breath capacity is to train for it and thus get mentally able. 2- If you have a lung problem or some disease that has done damage to your alveoli, or if you are trying to increase your alveolar capacity, then you may exercise your lung. The increase in capacity in a normal lung will be minimal. The exercise most commonly used is to blow air out through some resistance device, or Peep (positive end expiratory pressure). Interestingly, while swimming we expire against a slight pressure under water which on its own causes an increase in alveoli capacity and/or efficacy. Exhaling slowly through your lips will also help. 3- All this above is in accordance to what Jim and Fortress posted. The oxygen usage and carbon dioxide elimination systems are complex and involve many variables, the least of which to us normal healthy swimmers is the lung part of the process. Happy breathings, billy fanstone P.S. Jim, I was at 5,000 meters altitude and stayed around that altitude for about a week. My pulse oxymeter read about 86. I didn't die, nor did I feel much, except for the occasional longer than usual sigh and light-headness. My red blood cell didn't have time to increase but my physiological system started to adapt as my heart rate came down about 20 beats from 30 beats above my expected heart rate for any given effort. I was hiking in the Everest region. I had a polar and altitude watch turned on most of the time. When my patients breathing air and with some narcotics i.v. drop their oxymetry to below 90 going towards 80, I just watch the curve, or how long they stay low until they start climbing back to the 90s. No big deal. They don't even start to turn blue, which was the older method used to determine oxygenation. Hypoxic training would work out for endurance swimming, not for the usual pool swimming competition. You find blood doping (EPO) in endurance runners or Tour de France type guys. Swimmers have other variables in getting faster or lasting longer than the oxygen part of the problem.