On the World Championship in Sharm 2007, I did not pack, just a slow full breath, for my CWNF dive to 43m, and it a big improvement in comfort, relaxation.
Now with my divebuddy we're doing passive exhale and less than passive exhale dives to 15m at a local lake, and I really enjoy the 'long' glide, the relaxation is gives, and mostly the minimal loss of boyancy at the bottom. My current setup is a 5mm suit and just 2 kg. (sweet water) Doing CNF I just need to do 1 good duckdive and 1 stroke to fall at a nice pace. On the way up I now need 4,5 strokes for the 15m.
This weekend I hope we find the 21m spot in some other lake, and continou with FRC and below FRC experiments.
Personally I think I'm pretty flexible and capeble in having my diafragm and chest collapsing. Though I have to work on mouth-full and BTV. Both I've learned, but every season I need to relearn and brush up the techniques.
We train at a 5m pool where we also make training empty lung dives to 5m. The philosophy I have is that a 5m empty dive for me at the moment is similar to a 50m full lungs (~165ft) dive, and should have a similar divetime and profile. Allong a line a I slowly get down, feet first, land at the bottom stay there for a 15-20 s and slowly get up having a total divetime of 1'45" - 2" when a gradually and slowly breath in. I think it's important not to have any contractions during the dive. At the most a mild one on the last meter of the acent. This to avoid injury. I also avoid having cold unstretched muscles, and being cold.
Nice touch is the vasoconstriction (after) effects upon surfacing when one feels blood flowing back to one's limbs
These empty lung dives to 5m also put great stress on the heart, as I've been measured to have at one time during such dive a HR of arround 17 BPM (measured at the neck artery) by a medical student because the HR monitor couldn't register below 30 and read 00... Another reason I go slowly down and up allong a line.
The next pooltraining I'll have on friday, I'll attempt to measure my HR during the empty lung exercises.
I Agree with Laminar's advise, go slow take small steps.
Intresting thread! Keep it up!
Love, Courage and Water,
Kars
