Breathwork part 2: The invisible performance upgrade for dancers

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The one thing most dancers miss: it’s not only about oxygen

Breathing is a gas exchange game: you take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide. Inhaled air is roughly 21% oxygen / 0.03% CO₂, and exhaled air is still about 17% oxygen, but CO₂ jumps to around 4%.

So when you hyperventilate (breathing too fast/too much), you drop CO₂ too hard — and that can mean less oxygen available for your skeletal muscles, plus that nasty “air hunger” feeling even when you are breathing.

And remember: you’re not just “using lungs”. You have about 30 breathing muscles, and your main engine is the diaphragm, responsible for roughly 80% of respiratory activity. If it fatigues, your whole round feels heavier.

The HE4DS breathwork approach

1) HRV breathing: your daily “stress resilience” practice

This is the easiest entry point and one of the most useful for dancers because it targets the nervous system.

Protocol:

• • inhale 5–6 seconds

  • exhale 5–6 seconds

  • continue for 10–15 minutes

In the HE4DS framework, HRV training is used to strengthen the parasympathetic system and improve stress handling. The program links it with effects like increased vagal tone and reduced stress markers (e.g., cortisol).

How it should feel: calm, steady, almost losing the sense of time. That’s the point. You’re training the ability to downshift on purpose.

2) Daily diaphragm routine: “make the engine stronger”

Once you’ve got the calm base, you can train the mechanics. The HE4DS daily routine combines three tools (short and punchy):

A) Breath of Fire (Kapalabhati) — 1–3 min
Rapid, rhythmical exhalations through the nose, with the belly snapping inward each time. It’s used for diaphragmatic strengthening and activation.

B) Breath hold + pleural stretching — 1–3 min
This breath hold is structured in three stages:

1. 1. breathe-up + final breath out

   2. relaxation phase + pleural stretching

   3. recovery breathing

This is what this looks like:

Two important performance cues from the material:

• In the relaxation phase, calm your mind, an active brain can use up to 40% of available oxygen.

• When contractions show up: they’re your friend (natural reaction, helps circulate air and drive oxygen into the bloodstream).

C) Abdominal Lock (Uddiyana Bandha) — 3–8x
A breath hold on empty lungs with an active diaphragmatic stretch. It’s used to improve diaphragm/rib cage flexibility and digestion-related effects in the course material.

Here’s a video that shows the abdominal lock!

After any breath hold: 50:50 breathing
Right after a hold, do 4–6 reps of forceful inhale/exhale at about 50% of your max lung capacity, then switch back to nasal breathing ASAP.

3) CO₂ tolerance sessions: the “don’t panic when it burns” training

If battles make you feel like your chest locks up and your brain screams breathe now, that’s often a tolerance issue.

HE4DS places CO₂ tolerance training at 1–3 times per week to improve stamina and endurance under breathing stress.

We describe an effective way in this article that you can adapt to your personal dance style. Unsure how? Get in touch with us!

You don’t need to overcomplicate this: use the breath-hold work as the tolerance stimulus, keep HRV breathing as the daily foundation, and let consistency do the heavy lifting.

Battle application: what to do between rounds (without looking like you’re meditating)

Between rounds, your job isn’t “get all the air back.” Your job is: stop the spiral.

A simple reset that fits any cypher/battle setting:

• close your mouth, breathe through the nose

• aim for a slightly longer exhale than inhale

• drop shoulders + unclench jaw

• if you know the rhythm already, slide toward that 5–6 / 5–6 pattern

It’s subtle, it’s fast, and it prevents the classic mistake: sprinting your breathing when you’re already sprinting your body.

The “minimum effective plan” (so you actually do it)

Here’s a mid-ground structure that’s readable, realistic, and not a wall of bullet points:

Most days (10–15 min): HRV breathing (5–6 in / 5–6 out).
Optional add-on (5–8 min): short diaphragm routine (Breath of Fire → breath hold → Abdominal Lock).
1–3x/week: emphasize CO₂ tolerance via the breath-hold structure + proper recovery breathing.

If you’re deep in competition season, keep it lighter but consistent. If you’re in a build phase, you can push the breath holds a bit more, but the foundation stays the same.

Not training breathwork is under-training

Not training breathwork is under-training, because breath is the system that sits underneath everything you do. You can have the moves, the power, and the rounds in your legs, but if your breathing pattern collapses under pressure, your performance collapses with it. Breathwork trains the diaphragm, builds CO₂ tolerance, and – most importantly – teaches you to stay in control when your heart rate spikes. In other words: it’s not a “nice extra.” It’s part of your endurance base. If you’re skipping it, you’re leaving capacity on the table every time you step into a battle.

Want to go deeper into training holistically?
Check out the HE4DS Education Program 2026!