Generally, most people just do various cardiovascular endurance exercises and activities, but do not have a system or method that provides clear test-criteria and guarantee specific benefits after acheiving certain results.
However, our system is based on the body oxygen test that predicts amazing health benefits at 60+ s for the body oxygen test. These benefits include 4 hours of great sleep (naturally and without trying), a natural desire (often craving!) to exercise, and many other effects (see the last Table on this page below). In order to experience these effects, you need to change the way you breathe 24/7 or to retrain breathing.
Cardiovascular endurance is defined as the ability of the heart to provide enough oxygen to muscles during physical exercise for a long period of time. Elite endurance athletes always have very high VO2max (usually over 70 ml/kg/min in males). VO2max (maximum O2 consumption measured in ml of O2 per kg of body weight in 1 minute) is mainly an inherited factor. Therefore, you need to have super genes to become an Olympic champion. However, whatever your current VO2max, optimum training and correct breathing 24/7 can increase it by up to 15-20 units. Let us consider how.
Oxygen is provided via respiration. Therefore, it is necessary to find out the ideal or optimum breathing patterns at rest and during exercise that provide maximum O2 amounts for muscles of the body.Clinical experience of more than 150 Soviet and Russian medical doctors with sick patients and elite athletes suggests that people with more frequent and deep breathing at rest have reduced cardio fitness and less O2 levels in cells. My own experience with hundreds of my students agrees with observations of these doctors.
If you pay close attention to breathing of very fit and healthy elite athletes at rest and during exercise, you can notice that they breathe slower and less in both situations. (Note that millions of people believe that breathing deeper or more air improves O2 delivery to cells, but hundreds of clinical studies proved that hyperventilation reduces O2 transport to body cells.) Here is a summary of main findings related to 4 common breathing patterns at rest. You can click the links to see dozens of studies that confirm these numbers.
Table. MV (Minute Ventilation) and Rf (Respiratory Frequency) at rest
*Chronic diseases include heart disease, diabetes, asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis, cancer, and many others. Study Hyperventilation Syndrome for references and numbers.
As it is easy to observe, heavy breathing at rest results in relatively heavy breathing during exercise and that makes moderate or intensive exercise in the sick very difficult or impossible.
Table. Minute ventilation during moderate exercise (15-fold metabolism)
| Condition | Minute
ventilation | Short-term respiratory effects | Blood lactate | Duration of performance |
| Chronic diseases | About 150 L/min | Maximum mouth ventilation | Very high | A few minutes |
| Normal breathing | 90 L/min | Heavy nose breathing | Elevated | 1-2 hours |
| Super health states | 30 L/min | Easy nose breathing | Nearly normal | Many hours |
In spite of huge improvements in diet, modern people are less fit and have reduced cardio endurance in comparison with people living about a century ago. This graph explains the cause.
Furthermore, fast or deep breathing at rest undermines desire of ordinary people and athletes to exercise and do sport activities, their sports performance and cardiovascular endurance, as the next Table and its examples show.
Table. Examples of automatic breathing patterns on cardio endurance
| Body-oxygen level | Breathing pattern | Level of cardiovascular endurance |
| 1-5 s CP | Very heavy breathing pattern | Physical activity can be life-threatening since acute exacerbation can occur at any moment due to critically low body oxygen level. No performance. |
| 5-10 s CP | Heavy breathing pattern | Exercise can cause acute exacerbation of health problems (asthma attacks, stroke, angina pain, seizures, and so forth).Poor performance |
| 11-20 s CP | Ineffective breathing pattern | Most people experience and complain about chronic fatigue, but can walk with only nose breathing for hours on a flat surface. Fit athletes can exercise with mouth breathing. Cardiovascular endurance and health are greatly compromised. |
| 20-30 s CP | Deep breathing pattern | There are less or no complaints about fatigue. Physical activity (e.g., easy relaxed jogging) is well tolerated, but requires considerable psychological effort and self-discipline, unless one is an athlete. Reduced cardiovascular endurance. |
| 30-40 s CP | Light degree of hyperventilation | Exercise is comfortable and relatively easy, but a systematic or daily exercise routine generally requires some self-discipline. Subnormal level of cardiovascular endurance. |
| 40-60 s daily CP, less than 40 s morning CP | Subnormal breathing pattern | Exercise is easy and pleasant; nose breathing during exercise is natural and comfortable. Nearly normal levels of cardiovascular endurance and performance. |
| About 60 s morning CP | Normal breathing pattern | Exercise is joyful and people crave it. Level of energy is very high. If people force themselves not to exercise, their CP drops. Physiologically normal cardiovascular endurance. |
| Over 90 s MCP | Very light breathing pattern | States of super health with enhanced cardiovascular endurance |
For more information how basal breathing patterns determine health symptoms, lifestyle, and health states, visit Buteyko Table of Health Zones.
Natural lifestyle choices before and after breathing retraining
| Lifestyle factor: | Body oxygen < 30 s | Body oxygen > 50 s |
| Energy level | Medium, low, or very low | High |
| Desire to exercise | Not strong, but possible | Craving and joy of exercise |
| Intensive exercise with nose breathing | Hard or impossible | Easy and effortless |
| Typical mind states | Confusion, anxiety, depression | Focus, concentration, clarity |
| Craving for coffee, sugar and junk foods | Present | Absent |
| Addictions to smoking, alcohol, and drugs | Possible | Absent |
| Desire to eat raw foods | Weak and rare | Very common and natural |
| Correct posture | Rare and requires efforts | Natural and automatic |
| Sleep | Often of poor quality; > 7 hours | Excellent quality; < 5 hours naturally
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