Breathe up

[Gahiel]

Breathing up, I have just otwo questions and am open to any comments/suggestions. When I breathe up I usaually inhale for 6 seconds till maximum, hold for 3sec, exhale for 12sec and hold for 3 sec and repeat. I do this breathing teck. till about 20 seconds left untill my hold, then I inhale rapidly, hold for 3sec, exhale rapidly hold for 3sec. I can normally fit two of these 'breaths" into the 20sec time. On my third "fast breath" I do the same as before but I dont wait 3sec after I exhale. Insted I immidiatly inhale to my fullest and begin the hold.
A. Does this breathing pattern sound like hyperventilating, because usaually I feel a slight tingling in my body for about 1-3sec after the start of the hold. While I know the feeling of hyperventilating, im not sure that im actually committing to that really dangerous idea (but correct me if im wrong)
B. Is there a better/alternitave way to breath up??
thanks for all the help!

[perow1]

You will probably get many answers on breahting before you start your breathhold, I am just adding one of my thoughts.

I know that a good breathe up can help a lot. I just want to say that, wheter one belongs to the school thet wants to minimize the breathe up or belonging to the huge breathers, one can benefit from taking the mind off the breathing a bit.

I think that if you are to fixated on how you breathe a little misstake or unpredicted variation in your breathing can have devastating results on you mentally.

Unless you are very very fine tuned and are doing breathholds close to your physical limit you will notice that you can do a certain time with almost any preparation.

Personally I can hit a certain time with just about any (sane) preparation only working with willpower. It is just the extra minute that is dependant on a certain preparation. On the other hand I have not found the ideal preparation yet.

Now, back to topic, you are probably aware of this and I hope you get a lot of good tips from others.

[cdavis]

Hi Gahiel,

Is this static or dynamic?

If you are tingling, it sure sounds like hyperventilation and I would cut down on the breathup. There are lots of ways to do it, but try this. Diaphram breaths,2 seconds in, hold 5 seconds, exhale 20-25 seconds. This should be very relaxed (and relaxing). Control the exhale with your mouth not chest. Then do one or two relaxed, fast, but not full breaths, then full inhale and go. If you still have tingling, cut out the fast breaths, maybe do it anyway. Still tingle? it might not be low C02, try going with less than a full breath, Total breathup time 2-3 times your down time. This is for CW or dynamic, not necessarily static.

As an example (remember, everybody's different) I use the above with 4 fast breaths(20 sec) and don't tingle.

Connor

[Gahiel]

cdavis this is normally for static breath holds. The tingleing sensation is only brief and some times I cannot even feel it. idk perhaps it is a little bit of hyperventalation and i will definatly try your new way thankyou for all of your help!

[cdavis]

Ahh, static is pretty different from dynamic or cw, and I don't do enough static to have an intelligent opinion. PFI taught me pretty much the same breathup for wet statics. I know some people hyperventilate a lot for (dry?)static, but you need to ask some of them.

Connor

[Gahiel]

all right all ask around, I suppose hyperventalating for dry land isn't dangerous because if you BO or Samba you are just laying down so no big deal. however in the water that can be quite deadly. I didn't know that there were differn't breath up patterns for differn't types of breath holds ie. dynamic and static Ill have to look more in depth on that.

[Metridium]

Gahiel,

I sometimes feel a brief, light tingling when doing dry statics, even though my breathe up is quite relaxed and slow. I consider it mild hyperventilating and could avoid it, but perform better statics just near this edge. Using the same breathe up procedure in the water, I never experience tingling. The differences probably coming from being in the water, some constriction of my wetsuit, and 'dead' space in my snorkle. During your longer ventilations you stated that you inhale for 6 seconds to maximum. As a point of maintaining better relaxation I would not ventilate to a maximum inhale. It requires to much muscle work.

David

[trux]

Any type of hyperventilation (even a slight one) before apnea is rather counterproductive. It only helps you psychically to make longer breath-hold, because the urge to breath comes later due to lower CO2 level, but it does not help physically with hypoxia. Quite oppositely, by hyperventilating you will likely go into hypoxic state much sooner that you would go without it.

When hyperventilating, the body reacts to the low CO2 level by several mechanisms including releasing vasoconstrictors, but different ones than used by the mammalian diving reflex. Unlike at diving reflex, the vasoconstriction at low CO2 reduces the blood flux to the brain. When you hyperventilate it then takes much longer to reverse the effects and get into the diving reflex mode that really saves oxygen while keeping the brain running. It means that by hyperventilating you not only considerably increase the risk of samba and blackout, but also delay or eliminate the mammalian diving reflex. And I would definitely advice against hyperventilating even when training dry - first, blacking out may not be too good for the brain; second, there is still certain risk that you won't start breathing spontaneously, or choke on salivas, your own tongue, or vomit, or hurt yourself falling; and third, you only learn the wrong method and accustom your body and mind to it, and will tend to reproducing it in water too.

It is much better working on your CO2 and contraction tolerance, and trying to have a decent level of CO2 in blood that then kicks in the diving reflex as soon as possible. You'll get to much better times in this way. However, again I'd advice against extremes here too - deep diving with a too high CO2 may increase the risk of CO2 poisoning/narcosis, and deep water blackout, and also increases the risk of DCS (decompression sickness incident).

[perow1]

I agree with you trux, but still; let the end result be the judge on what was a good breathhold. Even if starting with high CO2-levels has a good potential, because of the reasons you mentioned, we must consider that some people just cannot endure a breathhold with much to intese contractions. It is always a balance you have to find out yourself.

If you have to end the static after a short time because you couldn´t manage to endure the pain you have not reached your goal, to acheive a long static. The other way around it is not really good to say that your new static PB was no good since you think you were hyperventilated.

I myself do not breath very much before a static and always do the maximum on my first hold. I agree that the high CO2-levels might give me a good potential here, but I can pretty much hit the same times when hyperventilating like crazy. My reasons not breathing up are only strategic. It is easier to have a reproducable routine if you have few tics and trics you have to go trough before the breathhold. And is is easier to add and eliminate new strategies if you have to juggle with as few things as possible.

My basic point here is that there might be an intrinsic "bad" with hyperventilating, but let the result be the judge, not the theory...
...experimatation will lead to knowledge about the own body.

[Gahiel]

I have said many times during this conversation that I do not intentionaly try to hyperventalate, and the deep breaths that I take are more like purges. I was just wondering if all of you fell that slight tingleing for about 1-3seconds after a breath hold. And am i breathing up correctly or is there a better way. Thanks alot for your help guys!

[trux]

Originally Posted by perow1

... let the end result be the judge on what was a good breathhold. ...

Sorry, but I disagree that you should judge by results. Of course, if you do not train (and even if your train), it is easier (less painful) to get longer times with hyperventilating, but you definitely move to the dark side and sooner or later will have a bad accident. If you personally decide to hyperventilate in spite of the serious risks, please avoid recommending it to others on a public forum that is being visited by people not knowing enough about the topic and able to follow your advices, and possibly killing themselves because of it!

[trux]

Originally Posted by Gahiel

I have said many times during this conversation that I do not intentionaly try to hyperventalate, and the deep breaths that I take are more like purges.

Gahiel, purges are hyperventilation. It's a bad mistake of many, thinking that you need to breath like mad to be hyperventilating. Any type of deep or fast breathing, purges including, even deep slow diaphragm breathing, unless well controlled will lead to CO2 level lowering, hence it is hyperventilation. And finger tingeling is a clear symptom of quite low CO2.

[Gahiel]

*sigh* than trux would you mind answering one question for me. What is wrong/how should I change my breathup patterns? I only do 2 purges before the hold. I only some times feel tingling. Im jsut asking is there a better way??

[trux]

Simple answer, Gahiel: no purges

[Gahiel]

no purging ok that sounds good. So a breath up before diving would just consist of a 6-8sec inhale hold 3sec exhale 12-24sec hold for 3sec and repeat? Because that is what I normally do and it clams/drops my HR quite nicely.