David Blaine broke the world record for holding his breathe. He set the record of 17 minutes and 4 seconds. The last record was set by a man in Switzerland for 16 minutes and 32 seconds. I remember holding my breathe underwater at the pool when I was a kid and I never made it past 1 min. 30 seconds...so I'd say seventeen minutes is pretty impressive...I'm getting short of breathe just thinking about it.