Beyond 6:30 in static apnea

[dallasdiver]

I should clarify. More blood=02? It seems that a larger volume would be conducive to carry more 02? Anyone?

[efattah]

Meditation increases GABA levels naturally.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

[DeepThought]

Well, that was exactly my point, that o2 is carried in the RBC, so I don't understand why more volume with the same amount of blood cells would transfer more blood. 5 litters of blood or 5.2 litters of blood, both with lets say 2 litters of red blood cells carry the same amount of O2. though maybe it can store more co2...

10x, I was intending to get back to meditaion some day...

[xsaul]

Hi Eric,

What is GABA?? I dunno what kind of meditation you mean, but I have tried Yoga techniques--they DO increase holding times.
Excuse my ignorance in proper terminology....
Water Rat

[Kars]

XSaul, your anser to your GABA-question is in post #86 by Dallesdiver.

Maybe we could come to a sort of round-up of things to focus on when one has acheaved the 6:30.

I recon the following aspects:

- Food
- rest and exercise rhythm
- Meditation

I have a question about the slowing down of heart.
Aparently the lower one can go, the better.
How can one learn to go low through the use of our mind and / or spirit.
Training now seems to be like just like regular muscle building, just have more repeditive time into the zone and the body adjusts to that. I would like to add to that a mental stimulation, and streamline and optimise this process.

In addition to this I wonder what lows do people have acheaved here? I know it's not the speed, but the blood troughput the heart puts out.

Recently I landed on a HR of 33, and it felt like it was of a normal strength and efficiency rate.
Friday I'll have another wet static training, using a HR monitor.
My PB is 6:50, So 'm right into the target area!

Thanks for the insights, the heart idea is a great field for exploring.

Love, Peace and Water!

Kars

[efattah]

Pulse is no that important, CARDIAC OUTPUT is what really matters. Oxygen consumption of the heart is related to the cardic output.

The cardiac output is generally related to the metabolic demand of the body. When your metabolism slows down, the need for O2 in the body is less, so the heart pumps less blood = lower cardiac output.

Cardiac output = Pulse x stroke volume
(in other words, number of beats per minute x amount of blood in litres pumped with each beat)

High level athletes typically have low pulses, with high stroke volume, and at rest their cardiac output is a bit less than a couch potato due to higher efficiency in the body.

[SEDATE]

Dear Eric
Yesterday:
i checked my blood pressure in a normal position, doing do nothing, just relaxing... it was;
HT=85 mmHg LT= 51 mmHg HB=58/min
then, i decided to make a strong HV to make my blood alkaline to know what is gonna be the result?!
10 times i made a strong hiperventilation until feel a headacke, i stop and checked the result..
HT:87mmHg LT:55mmHg HB=62/min
i saw no any big changing in HT and LT ratio, i did not understood!
Would you please make your comment on this case if you have an idea?
Regards
HT:higt tension LT=low tension HB=Heartbeat ratio/min

[Kars]

Eric I understood it's the cardiac output, and also that a sporters heart is much more efficient and does transfer more blood in a pulse.
The HR is just a indicator, 1/2 part of the equation, I know.

Is there a way to become aware of the bloodflow?

What are good ways to bring down the metabolism?

- Meditation is, but are there any specific points one may want to focus on, certain key points?

Can we draw up a comparison between time spent below a certain O2 saturation in the week and the amount of progress one can expect?

I like quality training, and favour the 'smart' way above the 'just do the X number of repetitions'.

Can we say that a 8' person in general has found out to relax deeper than when he was just at 6' level? What is the difference?

What is limiting our abilities to expand our relaxation? Will, the mind, time?

Love, Peace and Water!

[jome]

As important as relaxation is, I think the "beyond 6:30" level is a result of a whole range of adaptations. Both mental and physiological. High intensity, repetative training induces some physiological adaptations, meditation, relaxation and "quality statics" induce some others...But to be "all you can be", one must obviously master all of them. I think with a single approach or school you can easily get to that 6+ shape, and that's why it seems to be the magic number that a lot get stuck on. But to go further, you must keep trying and "work on the weakest muscle", so to speak. Not concentrate on your strengths, but your weaknesess.

Personally, as much as I like to emhasize the importance of relaxation, will power etc, I have to be a realist and say that a lot of it comes down to blood quality, lung size and packing. It's still not something I recommend for beginners, but if you look at the top names, all of them (or at least most), pack really, really much.

[Oligo]

Jome is probably right.

We have to look at empirical evidence. All athletes capable of very long holding times have two things: The ability to minimize oxygen consumption and the ability to store huge amounts of oxygen. Of these two, the ability to store a lot of oxygen is the more important one as the human body is more able to increase oxygen stores than to lower oxygen consumption.

By the way, theoretical calculations with empirically measured tissue oxygen consumption rates and other variables predict maximum holding times around 9-12 minutes without unconsciousness, not several hours. I once did these calculations using variables obtained from my own medical data. I could predict my maximum holding time with an error of just 10 seconds.

Also, people cannot change their DNA by visualizing something in their minds. You are stuck with what you have been given, until gene therapy becomes commonplace.

[jome]

As a third variable, I would suggest "tolerance to lower levels of oxygen". Ie you're not increasing stores or lowering consumption, you are simply able to stay concious at lower levels. This happens via increased blood circulation in the brain etc etc.

I would say that for a beginner, whose relaxation, posture etc is plain crap and he's barely able to sit still for 2 minutes without changing channels or something, the ability to minimize oxygen consumption is more important. Just training a few simple relaxation tricks will immediately yield results that seem like increbile leaps. Not unheard of that someone will double their static in a few weeks!

But for someone, who is experienced, knows their stuff and has very good relaxation etc, increasing oxygen stores is one obvious way to increase the time.

For someone very experienced and top level, fine tuning all three may yield 10-20 seconds here and there...

When someone makes a world record, busting all previous beliefs about the physiology of a breath hold using some weird mind trick, they've certainly got my interest! Untill then I'll stick with "what ever works, works"

Over simplified, a common beginner cycle seems to be something like:
3-4 -> relaxation, basic techniques - progress in leaps of tens of seconds, even over a minute at a time
5+ -> breathup, routines and preparation, lower oxygen tolerance - big leaps in pb (10-20 sec)
6+ -> the above + packing - after this most people will stop making progress in leaps and decide "static is not my thing" stop training regularily
~7 -> finetuning all, juggling variables + still more packing - progress second by second, sometimes even going backwards to redefine thinking and routines
8+ -> all of the above comined with excellent physical fitness, thick blood, good genes, obsessive training and mindset. Being strong in one area compensates for lack of another
9+ -> no compromises allowed, have to be top notch in every category
10+ ->Sheesh, who knows...I don't even want to think about it...

Anyway, I'm sure I'm just repeating stuff that has already been beat to death in the 100 replies to this topic

[pat fish]

A very old thread, one of the bests and still active

Today I consider hypercapnic tolerance in a broad sense (covering relaxation under hypercapnic conditions) as THE factor in the hole set. Why? Because by getting to a high level of hypercapnic tolerance you don't even have the benefits of slower metabolism during the performance but the hole program of phyisical impact (hypoxic training, changes in hematocrit, etc) and mental impact (high level of mental strength, relaxation) leading up to the performance.

Cheers
Pat

[Walrus]

I think we are forgetting the genetic factor in here. (Lung volume, blood volume, fat/skinny/muscle mass, metabolic rate, CO2 tolerance, brain function? etc. etc.) Instead of comparing everyone to the 6.30 mark, you should add a plus or minus of at least 1 minute. ie 2 people with exactly the same amount of training but different body types will have totally different statics. A friend I taught, complete beginner did a 6.30 static on his third ever try, no packing. In comparison someone else I taught had a pretty good blackout at only the 3.30 mark. So you could have 2 divers with the equally effective static routine, one would be at the 6 minute mark, one at 7. From Jome’s above example of times, rather then just match where you are in terms of time, work out where you are in terms of level of training, how advanced/effective your routine is. 1 person can have a crap routine and still be able to do 6 minute +, someone else a great routine and still be struggling at the 5.30 mark. I’ve seen this many times.


Also as far as adaptation is concerned, I think the most important part occurs at the brain level, not the body. The dive reflex/response is a lower level brain function, ie the brain stem (unconscious control of breathing, heart rate) and the cerebellum (unconscious - learnt motor skills). A lot of top level freedivers I know have totally normal red blood cell count. From what I hear Seb Murat changed his training approach so that his red blood cell count returned to normal levels yet his performance still increased, purely from training a very intense dive reflex/response.

Would be interesting to know what people like Tom, Martin, Natalia, Herbert, Peter P etc have in terms of red blood cell count, lung volume and other physical factors. At a guess the way Tom trains might be one of the few that gets any real physical adaptation as opposed to just training the dive reflex.


Cheers,
Wal

[efattah]

I disagree that metabolism cannot be altered dramatically. I don't believe that lung volume is that important in static anymore. In fact in 2006 if I can find some time to train I was planning on attempting a 7'00 to 7'30 FRC static on the bottom of the pool without a wetsuit. According to my calculations, the dramatically reduced lung volume during an FRC static would be almost entirely compensated for by the absence of packing induced tachycardia as well as the ability to block the contractions, which is only possible (yogi-style) with half full lungs. Further helping you out would be the shifted Hb-O2 dissociation curve. What I have found is that although FRC training does create a big increase in hemoglobin, the hemoglobin definitely behaves differently than hemoglobin obtained through inhale training, probably in terms of the Hb-O2 dissociation curve. For that reason I'm no longer certain that FRC training would improve inhale performance much unless the FRC phase were followed by a few weeks of inhale training.

Remember if you do yogi style contraction blocking the vagus nerve is stimulated without limit, only limited by the capacity of your nerves, which can be trained. At high levels of vagal stimulation the metabolism is decreased to a near standstill, allowing for a virtually limitless breath hold.

[jome]

Hmm, the FRC static on the bottom is an interesting idea! Let us know how it goes...

As for slowing your metabolism to standstill and limitless breath hold...Well, I have to be a cynic and say I'll believe it when I see it. I'm much too lazy to try to revolutionize statics my self. But I'll certainly try to steal a good technique when I see one! Right now the best I'm seeing is the traditional approach...I'm not saying the idea is totally impossible. There are lots of animals that do similar things and we're not that far apart genetically. But to do it totally "clean" (without substances) by just training your nervous system and mind? Well, when someone walks away from a competition with a 30min static and says that's what they did, I'll be listening.

Walrus, like I said, over simplified. But I dare say that there are not many over 8 minute guys who don't pack to over or close to 10 liters at the moment.

In fact, it would be very interesting to graph top breath holders pb's and packed lung volumes. I'm sure there would be deviation, but propably a very clear trend also...

As for people with 14 liter lungs not beating 7 minutes...Well, that's what I like to call the "gifted persons syndrome". Ie someone, who is gifted enough to do very good without any serious training, will have a hard time realizing their full potential, because, you know, they never need to. Applies to any area of life, just look around you