Why 90% of Elite Athletes Breathe Wrong — And What It Costs Them

In 15 years of working in elite sport environments, one thing has remained constant: nobody checks how athletes breathe.

Coaches track GPS. Medical staff monitor HRV. Nutritionists optimise fuelling windows. But the most fundamental physiological system — the one that governs oxygen delivery, recovery speed, cognitive function, and emotional regulation — goes entirely unassessed.

That system is the breath.

The Scale of the Problem

Dysfunctional breathing is not rare. In our assessment of over 200 professional footballers across three Ekstraklasa clubs, we found that 91% demonstrated at least one significant breathing dysfunction, including:

• Chronic mouth breathing at rest
• Upper-chest-dominant mechanics
• BOLT scores below 20 seconds (indicating poor CO₂ tolerance)
• Visible hyperventilation during recovery periods

These are not marginal findings. They represent a physiological ceiling that no amount of additional training volume can raise.

What “Dysfunctional Breathing” Actually Means

The term sounds clinical. In practice, it describes a very specific pattern most coaches would recognise immediately:

The athlete sprints. They stop. They double over, hands on knees, mouth wide open, gasping. Heart rate spikes. Cognitive sharpness drops. They take 45 seconds to recover where an optimised athlete would need 20.

This is not a fitness problem. It is a breathing mechanics problem — specifically, a CO₂ tolerance problem.

The CO₂ Tolerance Paradox

Most people believe breathlessness signals low oxygen. It doesn’t. The urge to breathe is triggered by rising CO₂ levels in the blood, not by oxygen depletion.

This matters enormously, because CO₂ is not simply a waste gas. Through the Bohr Effect, CO₂ is the primary trigger for oxygen release from haemoglobin into working muscles. Athletes with poor CO₂ tolerance:

1. Breathe more (higher minute ventilation) to “get rid of” CO₂
2. In doing so, exhale CO₂ before it can facilitate O₂ delivery
3. Paradoxically receive less functional oxygen at the tissue level
4. Fatigue faster, recover slower, and think less clearly under pressure

The fix is not to breathe more. It is to breathe less, more efficiently, and to train the body to tolerate — and utilise — higher CO₂ levels.

What the BOLT Score Tells Us

The Body Oxygen Level Test (BOLT) is a simple but powerful measurement of CO₂ tolerance. After a normal exhale, the athlete holds their breath. The time to the first involuntary urge to breathe is the BOLT score.

Norms from our programme data:

The finding that most professional footballers score similarly to recreational athletes — despite dramatically higher training volumes — confirms that breathing is not self-optimising. Training does not fix breathing. Breathing training fixes breathing.

The Cost at Matchday

In the final 20 minutes of a match — precisely when tactical decisions matter most — the dysfunctional breather faces a compounding physiological crisis:

• Respiratory muscles have consumed increasing amounts of cardiac output, reducing blood available to the legs
• Elevated CO₂ sensitivity triggers the chronic urge to open the mouth, overriding nasal filtration and humidification
• Cognitive function degrades as oxygen delivery to the prefrontal cortex diminishes
• Recovery between high-intensity efforts extends from 18 seconds to 40+ seconds

Our pilot data with one Ekstraklasa club showed that 90% of time-in-red-zone events occurred in the final 25 minutes — and that after 7 weeks of breathing training, this figure reduced by 90%.

The handbrake was removed. Not by adding training. By fixing the breath.

What Can Be Done About It

The encouraging finding from our research is that CO₂ tolerance is highly trainable. Unlike VO₂max, which requires years of aerobic development to move meaningfully, breathing mechanics can be measurably improved within 4–6 weeks.

The protocol is structured, evidence-based, and non-invasive:

1. Baseline BOLT assessment and dysfunctional pattern identification
2. Stage 1 (Isolation): Nasal breathing re-establishment and diaphragmatic activation
3. Stage 2 (Integration): Synchronisation with movement, CO₂ tolerance progression
4. Stage 3 (Improvisation): Match-pressure application and autonomous regulation

The full programme runs six months. The first measurable physiological change typically appears within six weeks.

If you’re responsible for the physical performance of a professional squad and haven’t assessed breathing, you have a performance leak. Every player on your roster who breathes through their mouth during recovery is leaving time on the pitch.

We’d be glad to run an initial BOLT assessment for your group — no commitment, no cost. Get in touch →