CO2 compartment hypothesis

[donmoore]

"If memory serves (which it may not ) then it takes 5-10 minutes for a red blood cell to make a return trip from the lungs to the legs and back when at rest"

Ben, and everyone lots of good thoughts, but I think this incorrect. It takes 11 seconds for hemoglobin to transfer O2 from the start of my breathing, after a hold, to reach my index finger, where my pulse/oxymeter reads it.
don

[Ben Gowland]

I'm suprised at the 11 seconds, and it certainly does suggest that the 5-10 mins is wrong, although it doesn't imply a 22 second circulation because the blood volume in the venous system is larger than the arterial system and because the O2 races through the blood on the way to the arm - i.e. it jumps along through red blood cells along the O2 gradient. I can't believe these two factors account for a 4:50-9:50 time difference though!

[alastair]

Hi Eric, nice thoughts. It seems to make sense too.

If I understood your first post, you use the slow-and-steady technique to build alkalinity in the body-water which will act as a 'store' for the CO2 produced during the apnea. You then perform a 5-minute CO2 table which neutralizes or even acidifies the blood-water in order to prevent blackout from excessively low CO2 in the blood.

(By the way, I suppose that a light hyperventillation would do the same trick, and maybe faster, as long as it was followed by the CO2 cycle)

In your second post you suggest that this could be followed by a very brief hyperventillation in order to increase the O2 saturation of venous blood. Presuming that you can access this oxygen during the apnea, I guess it could be a huge benefit. My question is :

Which happens faster during hyperventiallation? The uptake of O2 or the reduction in CO2 blood-water levels? I think your extended theory could only work if you can bring in more O2 without upsetting the blood-water alkalinity.

Do you have any thoughts or experimental data to shed light on this point?

Cheers

Al

[AlanC]

Thanks Eric for sharing your ideas with us and the others who have contributed to the discussion.

I have experimented with implementing the acidic blood, alkaline body water state for my last two static sessions, tuesday and today (thursday) with excellent results for me; a big p.b of 5:31 which has improved form 5:08 in two sessions.

The actual pattern i used today was:

1min slow deep breathing
1:40 hold
2min slow deep breathing, 3 breaths
3:00 hold
8min slow deep breathing
1min hyperventilating
3min C02 table (1min hold - 1 breath - 1min hold - 1 breath - 1min hold)
2min hyperventilation
inhale + pack - 5:31 hold.

By getting myself into Eric's proposed state of acidic blood, alkaline body water i succesfully attempted to use this state to do far more hyperventilation than i ever have (i've never done much more then 20s). This resulted in me getting contractions far later than i ever have done; first contration 4:40ish (never later then 3:50 before) this made 5:31 easy and well within my limits of self control.

I know this isn't pysiological evidence that Eric's theory works, but the results are all i need to be impressed.

Alan.

[efattah]

Totally awesomen Alan!

Keep the experiments coming!


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

[efattah]

Just a few more results like Alan's, and the 'hypothesis' can be upgraded to a 'theory.'


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

[donmoore]

There is some really interesting discussion going on here. Eric, thanks for sharing your hypothesis. Alan, thanks for experimenting with it and please keep us informed of further results. Unfortunately I won’t able to contribute with any meaningful data from my own experiences for a while, because I just had rotator cuff surgery, and with such a major body shock I wouldn’t be able to tell what different breathup techniques were doing what. Typing with one hand really sucks too!

One thing I find interesting about the four different blood/body alkaline/acid states, is which one would benefit different freedive disciplines the most. When Eric first presented it he left that alone. Latter he wondered out loud if the alkaline blood / acidity body state would be beneficial. The idea behind this is more oxygen could be loaded into body tissue from the blood during the breath up. O2 likes to travel from high ph (alkaline) to low ph (acidity) places. Temperature and particle pressure changes are the other two major factors affecting O2 binding and releasing points.

But what seems to be good in the breathup stage seems to be opposite during the hold. For instance after the hold begins acidity tissue would draw more O2 out of the circulating system, thus depleting our blood O2 faster. Now it seems to me, anyway, that it would be all right for the brain tissue to draw more O2 out of the blood in the later stages of the hold, because hopefully that would keep us conscious longer, at lower blood O2%, but it wouldn’t be good for the less essential body parts to draw more O2. It appears these other body parts can handle low O2 better. My guess is that the brain and the heart is going to take it’s share O2 from the blood almost without regard to ph, Po, & temperature, but that’s just a guess from a non-medical/scientific person.

Now if my above guess is true than the best ph balance for breath hold would be alkaline blood / acid during breathup, then quickly shifting to acid blood / alkaline body during the hold. This probably isn’t possible so we are left with choosing the state with the greatest benefits and least negatives. Alan choose acid blood / alkaline body and went for the slower draw of O2 from the blood during the hold. I think that's the direction I would experiment first in too.

Keep the good work up guys & gals,
don

[AlanC]

My p.b came after a fairly average patch and the session itself was nothing special so something has had a positive effect on my static apnea. Looking back over the last few weeks, out of laziness, i have been jumping straigt into breath holds with no breath-up before the first hold and using short recoveries. Looking at Eric's theory it seems to me that i wasn't allowing enough time to lower CO2 in the body water and this was resulting in below par times. When i started out i always did 5min prior to and between every breath hold and subsequently made quick improvements and set good times.

That's just a bit more info to help build on the theory but now i have a question for you guys. In the last week i have started a Creatine Monohydrate supplementation cycle for my athletic training. One of the 'side effects' is increased water storage around the muscles. This is a side effect in athletics cos it makes the muscles tight, but how would this additional water effect apnea.

Alan.

[efattah]

Alan,

Make sure you don't mix your creatine with an acidic drink, otherwise it will degrade into creatinine in less than a minute and do nothing except put a burden on your kidneys/liver.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

[AlanC]

It's cool, i mix it with water.

Alan.

[alastair]

This was my point too Don.

I know nothing about biology, but there seems to be some contradiction in the best breath-hold pH balance (alkali-body, acid blood) and what happens during the last minute 'oxygen loading' hyperventillation phase that Eric described.

This activity will surely blow off CO2 as much as it loads O2 and you're left with a high samba potential. The alternative is to go into the breath-hold with a good pH balance, but low O2 stores.

After the body-water alkalination phase there should be oxygen just about everywhere it can cling to - right? Then you need to bring your blood acidity to the point that it begins to slowly drive oxygen into the bloodstream. There is surely a set of conditions (The Fattah Profile?) under which CO2 is produced at basically the same rate that it is absorbed into the body-water, maintaining the pH at the perfect point. No contractions and no blackout.

So my question was and is, can these magic conditions be achieved, or must we always compromise?

I suppose there are 2 possibilities :

1. To find a technique for increasing the blood-water CO2 without reducing oxygen stored in the muscles or venous blood

2. To find a technique for re-storing oxygen after the final CO2 cycle without blowing off the CO2 aqain.

Am I making sense?

My uneducated and ill-informed guess is that technique 1 is more likely. Perhaps it would be possible to do it in the following way :

a. Put a rubber band around your left wrist, blocking the flow of blood (and oxygen) to your hand

b. Breathe deeply for some minutes in order to blow off all CO2 in the body-water and increase the O2 stores.

c. Meanwhile, pump your hand like crazy. This will create a lot of local CO2 and lactic acid without using your O2 stores in the rest of the body.

d. You now have alkaline body-water, alkaline blood-water and high O2 stores. You also have a hand full of acid.

e. This is the cool part... while packing for the breath-hold, take off the rubber band. The acid will course around your body, decreasing the pH of the blood-water and setting up the 'Fattah Profile' and initiating the 9 minute static!!!

OK, I'm sure this can't work, but one of you biology-types must surely be able to find a way. How about injecting lemon-juice directly into the blood-stream (the Alastair Plunge Technique).

Al

P.S. the lemon juice was a joke...

[tylerz]

Lots to think about here but I saw one thing I can offer so far regarding the blood circulation times brought up by Ben and Don. I have a reference that states the average volume of blood in a person is around 5 litres. The full volume of blood is circulated in 1min for an average person. This is based on the avg info of:

5 litre blood volume
Blood circulation 70ml/heartbeat
4.9 litre/min
70beats/min

[donmoore]

Al,
I think the acidity blood is crucial. It’s the key to getting as much O2 in the blood as possible. More O2 in the blood will have more of a positive (direct) effect on long statics than any O2 loading of body tissue. In a normal breath we are only drawing out fraction of the available O2 from the air in our lungs. The reason why is because we easily reach our blood saturation max. Raising the saturation max point, I believe, would have the most direct effect.

I might be crazy, but lemon juice, if I were capable of performing breathholds right now with little other changes, would be one of the first things I would try. Not injecting it -- besides that being crazy --, but drinking it right before the final breathhold. Remember blood acidity is what we (well at least me) want. We want a delayed alkaline reaction into the blood stream. How long from drinking it to, to it raising blood pH? Probably at least 5 or more minutes, which means you, could have acidity blood at the best time. In the meanwhile the lemon juice should have a direct effect on the alkalinity of the mouth, throat, stomach and kidneys and maybe decrease their blood O2 draw and maybe allow better CO2 absorption and blood off loading.

Lemon juice is not a band substance, which means it would perfectly legal and practical to have some in your water bottle. It may not work, buts it’s just to easy and practical not to test.

I have O2 blood %’s and hr measurements at different time points for about my last 50 dry statics. If I didn’t just have surgery I would be able to quickly determine if lemon juice or any of The Fattah Profiles worked for me. Somebody, please give it a try a report back.
don

[tylerz]

Don,

Hahah I was expecting this to come up about lemons. My mind was prepared once I saw someone mention grapefruits! Aniko is always telling me how I must have lemon juice to lower the acidity (increase alkalinity) of my body. I trusted her on this so now that it comes up towards diving, I have finally looked into it myself.

Here are the details I found:

From a Reams practitioner on lemon:

>Lemons are the only food which are purely anionic. The catch is that
this
is only true of fresh lemons.

>After about 30 minutes of exposure to air (oxygen), lemon juice becomes
>cationic. The confusion comes when one thinks in terms of acid and
>alkaline. Lemon juice would always be thought of as acid, but, while
>fresh, is anionic (which corresponds to alkaline). If you had an acid
>urine pH and you used Dr. Reams' lemon/water drink as he suggested,
>your pH would become more alkaline. This seems illogical when you think
>of lemon juice as acidic. But it's not, its anionic. In addition to
>fresh lemon juice, the only other thing that is purely anionic is pure
>calcium.

Now, although body alkalinity is preferred over body acidity for health reasons (supposedly very important since most health problems occur in an acidic state), if you are determined to increase statics this way, then lemon juice is not your friend!

That being said I do not quite follow how the breakdown of lemons does not produce acid that is absorbed by the body. The lemon is broken down into water, carbon dioxide, and an inorganic compound (alkaline). But if CO2 (acidic) is being seperated then do we not absorb that as well? Or maybe it is such a small amount of the absorbed nutritional value?

Cheers

[efattah]

Citrus fruits all contain citric acid. When you drink citric acid, your digestive system neutralizes the acid and converts it into citrate, which is then fed into your blood. Citrate is a krebs intermediate (involved in energy production), but it is also a precursor to bicarbonate (the primary buffer in the blood).

Thus, drinking citric acid makes you more alkaline. I always drink citric acid (i.e. from either lemon juice, or pure citric acid), a few hours before max apnea attempts. Actually, you can also use sodium citrate, potassium citrate, calcium citrate, magnesium citrate, etc.., but taking too much of any of those can cause electrolyte imbalances, and also have a laxative effect.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada