[TampaBrian]

for a breath up, do a slow deep 5 second inhale, and 10 second slow deep exhale. Just relax and focus on it taking time. After about 2:30, take a huge breath and go, you should be able to hit 2:00 or close after about 2 of these. Remember to do the 2:30 recovery breathing. Some may say the breath up I explained is semi-hyperventilation, but if your doing it very slow, I wouldn't consider it hyperventilation. If you don't want to do that, than simply breath normal for 2:30 and think about something that calms you, better yet think of something that makes u sleepy.

On a cooler note, I tried a few extreme co2 tables with much success after only a few days. First, take a deep breath, no breath up. Hold it for 45 seconds, let out all the air, take another deep breath immediately and hold again for 45 seconds... See if you can do 2 or 3 of these. Don't do them in the water!!!!!!! Once you work your way up to 6 7 or 8 of these, you should in theory be able to do 2/2:30. Once you got that down, change the 45 seconds to 55 or a minute. At that point you probably won't need/be able to do any more than that consistently in a row. During all this, don't forget your o2 tables, its important to build both tolerances. Good luck and keep me posted.
-brian