What breath-up techniques do i use while freediving

[jmcclung]

Hi, Im new to the free diving world. I have seen some great stuff on this site on techniques to improve hold time. But what is safe to do while actually freediving??? I know that hyperventilation is no good, what about the "deep breath slow exhale" method. Anyway, i am just wondering what is safe to do while diving. Id love it is someone could help me out with this, or maybe point me to an old thread that answers it. Thanks,
jm

[baghira]

Hi
I am also quite new into freediving.
Although I use to freedive for years, I never went deep into it, and i experimented all on my own.
Recentlu I am also doing an apnea course where the first thing not to do is hyper ventilation.
He alway focuses on relaxation, most important, what might help is pranayama (yoga) breathing techniques. he also says that the best to breath is to inhale normally and to exhale you must take twice as much time.

[salibandy]

Well, the breathe up period is for you to get into the 'zone', meaning slowing your heartrate down, going to a faraway land, etc etc. The deep breath slow exhale thing will probably help slow your heartrate down, so yeah, I'm guessing it's fine. Like you said, no hyperventilation or funky stuff like that. Of course, always dive with a buddy, preferably 2.

[Gwaihir]

I usually breath inn on ca 4 sec and out on ca 10 sec for ca two minutes.
Then 3 strong and complete full inhale and exhale.. Then dive...
But I wanna know what the "pros" do

[salibandy]

The 3 strong inhale and exhale, I believe, have the same effect as hyperventilation, which is saturating your blood with O2 and flushing out CO2. Correct me if I am wrong, but that doesn't seem safe.

[alexrom1207]

I'm definitely no expert but I find it best to count your inhale at normal time (1 second = 1 second) but when I do the exhale I count slower (1 second =2 or 3 sec) so 4 seconds in and "4" seconds out, but the "4" seconds out, even though I only count to 4, is actually 8 or 12 seconds. I started doing this because I was counting faster on the exhale because I psychologically I was trying to make it twice as long and therefore counting faster to reach the 10 or 12 second exhale. This resulted in killing my relaxation and made my heartrate go up. I found that counting very slowly not only made the exhale longer than the inhale but it also relaxed me and lowered my heartrate. Again this is just what works for me. Good Luck

[TRITON]

I tried many breathing paterns and most of them resulted in me begining the dive hypocapnic....nowadays I just breath normaly(as if i'm sleeping),do 1-2 deep SLOW breaths,pack and dive.I found out that only normal breathing before the dive allows me to relaxe completely.As someone mentioned ealier in this thread it would be interesting to know how top freedivers do their breathup.

[Ulf]

This is somthing you very often hear: "I do slow breathing for x minutes and x purges...but I don't hyperventilate.". It’s a common misconception but the truth is that ANY type of “breath up” is a form of hyperventilation! The speed and rate of breathing only effects how quickly you get hypocapnic. There is nothing wrong with hyperventilation, most freedivers do it, but you should KNOW that you do it and make sure you have proper safety.

Personally I agree with triton, letting your body breath the way it wants to works best for both performance and safety.

[Gwaihir]

Originally Posted by Gwaihir

I usually breath inn on ca 4 sec and out on ca 10 sec for ca two minutes.
Then 3 strong and complete full inhale and exhale.. Then dive...
But I wanna know what the "pros" do

This is what I learnt at my CMAS*** freediver course.. Is it wrong ?
Lets debate

[96ekhatch]

Just Practice Alot And U'll See The Diference I Stared With 30 Seconds And Now I Could Do 1 Minute And 10 Seconds And That's Lest Then 1 Month Of Practice

[azapa]

Originally Posted by Gwaihir

I usually breath inn on ca 4 sec and out on ca 10 sec for ca two minutes.
Then 3 strong and complete full inhale and exhale.. Then dive...
But I wanna know what the "pros" do

It sounds perfect, and is what I do. (i am still a bit of a noob though so watch what I say!)

Occasionally after a longer or tougher dive I will hyperventilate a little to vent accumulated CO2, but I will always wait another 60 sec. or more to allow my heart to slow and CO2 levels to rise to near normal.

There was a great thread on hyperventilation a couple of weeks ago, sorry, look for the link yourselves i'm trying to work here

A funky dry or pool test is to use one of those polar heart rate monitors. You will see how a good rest and breath up really slows the heart down, and how much a stressful breath up or hyperventilation speeds it up.

[trux]

I'd like to address some of the common misconceptions that appeared in this thread:

1) As Ulf wrote, most of so-called "breath-up" methods are nothing else than plain and simple hyperventilation. Perhaps little bit slower hyperventilation than the commonly known and feared "fire breathing", but nevertheless it is still hyperventilation with the same effects.

2) You do not want to reduce your heart-rate before the dive. That would be counterproductive, since it would reduce the blood flow, hence the oxygenation of organs and muscles, and cause desaturation of the venous blood. What you want is dropping the heart rate as soon as possible after starting the apnea, not before! Before the apnea you want though reducing your oxygen consumption to the necessary minimum. So the maximal possible relaxation is necessary, but if you manage to keep your heart rate high despite the relaxation, it is only good! It will lead to bigger stocks of oxygen in tissues and especially in the venous blood (arterial blood is practically saturated at normal breathing anyway)

3) If you are able to make 3 times longer dives during few days (like 96ekhatch wrote in the last post) just thanks to the "breath-up", then you want to know that it is very likely not because you got so quickly so good, but more likely because you found that the more you hyperventilate (or breathe-up, breathe deep, purge, ...) the easier you can hold your breath. What you miss though is that the body gets hypoxic with the same speed (and often even quicker), you just do not get the signals about it, and feel no urge to breath. If connected with an ascent, you may be quite likely quite close to your physiological limits at every dive. It is only a question of time when you overdo the hyperventilation, the depth, the time, or encounter unusual situation and you pass away without even getting any warning.

More about hyperventilation here: http://forums.deeperblue.net/safety/...perventialtion

[azapa]

trux, you are right on all points, but may miss some simple issues regarding heart rate/stress/exertion in the water that must be tamed before a dive.

Lets say my resting heartbeat is 60BPM, when I swim over to the line to start my dive it rises to say 120BPM. I of course will not do a very good dive then, so I rest. I would like to have a resting heartbeat of 60BPM before a dive I think, and watch it drop to 30BPM at 40M. These are some real examples I have noticed on myself using a dive watch with pulse meter.

Slow exhalation will reduce heart rate. Its a question of how far to reduce it?

Would you say that a resting heartbeat was optimal for a dive, or how about resting + 25%? any ideas?

[trux]

As I wrote, the higher heart-rate before the dive, the better. So if it is 120 just before the immersion, it is just fine as long as it drops quick then. Well, in the same time the body must be maximally relaxed, so that it has the right effect (particularly oxygenating the venous blood), and that's not something you can achieve easily - when you relax, the heart-rate goes down automatically. However, you should definitely avoid breathing techniques activating bradycardia through the vagal system stimulation (parasympathetic innervation), or through mental exercises. You should rather try staying under moderate stress, while avoiding any muscle tension. That's something which is not easy, but definitely much better than artificially trying to drop the heart-rate before the dive

[azapa]

thanks trux,

so, given the same muscle relaxation state, C02 and 02 levels, 120BPM will give me longer, safer dives than starting at 60BPM? A little mental stress (comp. environment, current, spearing) is therefore a good thing?