CO2 compartment hypothesis

[tylerz]

Well I suppose I should say lemon juice is not your friend towards becomming acidic! If I understand correcly Eric, you are saying by taking the lemon juice your body will generate buffers more readily, which then can cancel out the acidity of the blood!?

Now does that not go against what you have proposed with the alkaline body water/acidic blood?

So I guess I should ask, under the idea you presented, how do you imagine increases/decreases in your body's buffers effect the equation?

Cheers

[efattah]

The simplest way to think of buffers is to imagine two scenarios:

1. 50L of body water without buffers
2. 50L of body water with lots of buffers

First of all, before we even start, fluid #2 would have a higher pH (be more alkaline).

Now, suppose in each case we 'inject' a fixed amount of CO2 into both of those fluid volumes (1 & 2). The fluid in case #2 then would be only slightly acidic, while the fluid in case #1 would be very acidic.

So, buffers generally have a dampening effect on changes of acidity; they cause the fluid to accept acidic agents, but they cause a resistance to the change in pH.

Thus, an athlete with high buffers (either caused by CO2 tables or by drinking lemon juice), can have a lot of CO2 in his system with only a slight increase in acidity... so, his contractions are delayed versus a person with lower levels of buffers.

Buffers in the blood include:
- Bicarbonate (primary buffer)
- Phosphate, Sulphate, etc...

Citrate is a precursor to bicarbonate.
Hemoglobin only 'buffers' CO2, whereas the above three will buffer all acids including lactic acid etc...


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

[Bill]

Eric
I've been waiting for a good opportunity and picked today. The plan was to try your new static prep but, stay close to what I have been doing. Started as usual;

Four stage lung stretch up to max pack
Six relax negative statics, one breath and 10 to 60 second hold
Two minutes slow ventilations (80%)/Two static
Three min. slow vent/three static
Four min. slow vent/Five minute static (light contractions before three)
Four min. slow vent
change of routine here!!!
for my record;
twenty exhale only vents in 15 seconds, two 95% vents, 10 packs and go
today;
one more min. vent
two min. static
one min. recovery and hyperventillate, fifteen packs and go

This was dry today. I had a good buzz for over a minute which was normal back when I used hyperventillation. Mild contractions started at 3:20 and by 4:30 had become as bad as ever. The 'gut it out mode' started about 5:00 (normal) and slid by very fast. The whole static it seemed that the watch was ticking faster than normal. I sat up about 6:00 and felt better than normal as it came up on 7:00. The veil came down fast just after that and I had a big samba.
This was my first try at your new method and I don't think I did it quite right but the time was almost as good as my last and would have felt great if the target was seven or less.
What do you think?
Aloha
Bill

[bruno]

Yesterday evening I tried :
breath up 15 min long and slow ventilation
first static empty lungs 2'50" with 5 contratction (never got there before)
5 minutes of long slow ventilation
second static : 5'15" contraction started at +/- 5' (normally at 3')
rest and +/- 5 minutes ventilation +1' hyperventilation (fast) gave me 5:30 with small samba - my buddy didn't see it, but I felt one (had no contractions, I stopped for fading vision)
5' ventilation + 1' breathold till fingers stopped tingeling,
third apnea of 5:42 (5:45 is PB) 30 sec of " nice" contractions, at the edge of samba

my conclusion so far : this kind of ventilation delays contraction very well, I still need some experimenting to know how far I can go in this ventilation without hypocapnia (blood), and certainly, with this breath up I'll have less "bad days"

bruno

[donmoore]

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 made these statements earlier, but after some more study, I have discovered how wrong I was. When I originally studied my wife’s Human Anatomy & Physiology textbook I read how steep the saturation curve rises with changes in PO2 (Oxygen Particle pressure) and how a change in ph shifts the whole curve to the left or right. What I failed to see and understand is the curve rises steeply at low PO2. Normal alveolar pressure is 100 mm Hg. At this rate hemoglobin saturation is already 97.5%. From this point the curve rises very slowly to where it takes a PO2 of 250 mm Hg before it finally reaches 100% saturation.

Each hemoglobin can bind 4 molecules of O2. 97.5% saturation means that 75% of the hemoglobin molecules are already carrying their maximum amount of 4 molecules of O2, and the other 25% are already carrying 75% (3 molecules) of their maximum O2 carrying capabilities. The saturation curve is so flat toward the top that shifting it to the right by purposely acidifying the blood would have a negligible effect.

As blood makes its way through the arteries to tissue, the PO2 drops rapidly which puts the saturation curve in the steep part. Here a shift of the curve to left or right due to change in blood ph would have a much larger effect on how much O2 is released.

So to summarize, increasing the saturation of blood through acidity or temperature in the breathup to have longer breathholds, just isn’t going to do much, because their isn’t much room for improvement. Now this doesn’t say that the idea of oxygenating our body tissue is not valid. I don’t know have an opinion about that one yet. What this does seem to say though is that changing ph of tissue could have a much larger effect by decreasing the O2 drain during the hold. So in other words, instead of trying to get more O2 in, I think we should focus on trying to slow the amount going out.

That’s my current understanding. I hope I didn’t lead anyone astray with my comments.
don

[alastair]

So in other words, instead of trying to get more O2 in, I think we should focus on trying to slow the amount going out.

From what I understand (and I don't even have a book to read!), oxygen leaves the tissues when we consume what is in the blood (actually I don't know chicken-and-egg relationship between bood O2 consumption, blood-water CO2 production and O2 leaving the tissues). Anyway, the most effective way of slowing this down is probably to relax more. I think the most important thing is to avoid slowing it too much (by starting with low blood-water CO2) which makes us prone to samba.

Having low body-water CO2 (or high buffers from lemon juice consumption!) keeps the blood-water CO2 from rising too high (by giving it somewhere to go) and avoids nasty contractions.

I keep trying to ask this question and nobody answers. Please let me know if I'm chuntering on widly in the wrong direction, if I'm on track but I'm asking a difficult question, or if I've offended someone... but I suppose the ideal is to have low blood-water CO2 (long deep breaths), not too low blood CO2 (short statics) and decent O2 in the tissues. From my understanding, getting this high O2 is only possible through hyperventillation (or maybe drinkning bleach...) and I suppose this must effect the CO2 in the blood-water.

Must we therefore choose between High-O2, Low-Blood-Water-CO2, Low-Body-Water-CO2 (which feels good but we samba) or Low-O2, OK-Blood-Water-CO2, Low-Body-Water-CO2 (which is a low-contraction profile, but lacks precious oxygen)?

Or is there a technique that can be used to get all 3 factors positioned correctly?

Ciao

Al

[efattah]

Don,

Remember that while your arterial blood may be 98% saturated with O2, your venous blood (returning to the heart after a round-trip around the body) is probably only 60% saturated. By hyperventilating, your arterial blood stays at 98% but your venous blood can get up to 80% saturated or even more. This is where the extra O2 storage comes in -- Peter Lindholm did a nice analysis of this effect in his thesis. There would be no room for improvement once your venous blood is also 98% saturated. The slower you consume O2, the less O2 your blood offloads during a round trip. In the state where your body was consuming almost no O2, the 'drained' venous blood may be 96 or 97% saturated upon return to the heart. So, decreased metabolic rate actually increases the amount of stored oxygen in the blood as well.


Eric Fattah
BC,Canada

[donmoore]

Eric,
I am so glad you brought this up. Where could I read Peter Lindholm analysis? I have read some of his work, but I could not find the one where he says hyperventilation raises “venous blood 02”. I assume venous blood is roughly 50% of total blood, so a 20% point increase in O2 there could be large.

The problem I have with this is its contradictory to my own experience and what Kirk and Martin taught me. With my own O2 tests I found that the more hyperventilation I did the more comfortable I was (less contractions), but the quicker my O2 dropped. This was accomplished with doing hyperventilation followed by slow breaths to regain composure, with 3 to 4 purges (more hyperventilation) right before mild packing. I did this for several weeks, before I finally determined I would never reach the same O2 as I was achieving earlier. The idea was to lower the pain from CO2, which was accomplished, but at the sacrifice of shorter times. All my best O2% at 4:00 minutes have been with little hyperventilation and a high amount of pain. It seems the more pain at the 4:00 mark, the better the O2.

I decided to go the other direction and reduce hyperventilation to none. One dry static I even eliminated the whole breathup and the warm-up holds. Just took one large breath, packed 5 times, and went. The pain was outrageous, but some interesting things happened. At 1:00 minute my heart rate was 51 bpm, at 2:00 minutes it reached an all-time low of 38 bpm, and at 3:00 it was 39 bpm. I have been down to 39 bpm about 6 times, but that was always around 4:00 and it slowly rises after that. The 2 and 3-minute marks were about 30 beats below average and 19 and 14 beats below the lowest I have ever recorded for those times. After that it rose to the lower 40’s.

My O2 was consistently the 2nd highest for the whole time of the hold that lasted until 4:30, which was the point I just couldn’t take the pain anymore. I have tried the no breathup technique since then. My results have been I can only get the super low hr and high O2 on the very first hold, but being able to handle the pain on most days, is currently not within my ability. I was a little crazy that day. After the first hold, my hr shoots up and my O2 drops.

The Performance Freediving Student Manual says, “Hyperventilation …. This does not store extra oxygen. On the contrary, if practiced too vigorously, it will actually rob the body of oxygen”. Martin told me that in preparing for his static world record, he cut the number of purges he did down and got better results. I think he only did 2 or 3, but I could be wrong. I have even been entertaining the thought that hypercapnia (CO2 increase) might actually cause some O2 conserving changes.

What are your experiences with your fire-breathing actually increasing your O2 levels at different intervals in your statics? Although I think its wonderful for someone to break their personal bp, I can’t help wondering if any new method that included more hyperventilation, caused them to hold their breath longer by lowering the pain from CO2 and not increasing their O2. Unless the person used an oximeter or held their breath to black out with both techniques, I don’t think we can draw any conclusion about their O2 levels being more or less.

My experiences with lots of hyperventilation go hand in hand with Pezman’s statement of “hitting the wall” and with Bill’s last post of feeling good, but then having an unexpected Samba. Not the hypocapnia concern at the beginning, but plain old low O2 at the end. But maybe this is from doing the hyperventilation wrong.
Look forward to your insights,
don

[Johnny Arizona]

What is packing. I'm new to the "science" of static apnea although I've been holding my breath for minutes at a time since I was in my teens.

My best time is around 5'40". I got that by breathing deeply, not fast not slow for three hundred breaths or so. I didn't time it.

I'm intrigued by the breathe for so long then hold your breath for two minutes, then breathe for so many minutes and go for x number of minutes.

I seem to go thru stages. 2.5 min. the maybe 3' 15" or so then 3' 45" then 4 something etc.

I need to find a way to get up there faster. All those stages tend to get pretty boring.

I'd appreciate any "non techinical" help you can give me.

Thanks.

[efattah]

Don,

Using my oximeters I also have found that I if I only take a few breaths, then hold, I have much higher O2 readings in the later stages, compared to hyperventilating. However, as Lindholm described, I'm sure that hyperventilating does store more O2 by various means. However, CO2 is a strong modulator of metabolism. High CO2 stimulates the vagus nerve, which slows your heart & metabolism. This effect causes O2 to be conserved so well, that you end up with higher O2 at the end, even with lower O2 to start off with, when doing high CO2 breath-holds.

Hyperventilating not only lowers CO2, but also increases your heart rate, and takes up a lot of energy; you can even end up with lactic acid in your breathing muscles from the huge effort. So, if you don't hypeventilate in an efficient way, you will start the breath-hold with more O2 stored, but you will have:
- Lactic acid (Oxygen debt) in your breathing muscles, which will quickly drain O2 from your stores
- Low CO2 levels, preventing the vagal stimulation which would normally conserve O2
- Higher heart rate & metabolic rate in general, from the vigorous exercise during the hyperventilation
- Decreased bohr effect from excessive alkalinity, preventing O2 release in the later stages of the breath-hold

For these reasons, the ideal static would be to do virtually no breathe-up, then simply resist the 1st contraction until the end of the breath-hold.

However, given that most people can't do that (except yogis), we are forced to find methods which allow us to push ourselves closer to the limit. In so doing, we have lower O2 levels in the later stages, but we can actually push to a B/O or close to it.

Many of the negative effects listed above can be overcome by a 40 to 60 second static apnea right after the hyperventilation, and right before the max hold. This is somewhat in line with the body water hypothesis; and I've had great results with that lately -- i.e. the 40 to 60 second hold after the hyperventilation, but before the max breath-hold.

I have lindholm's thesis in hardcopy; you can get it from him in PDF format if you e-mail him. I might still have it buried in PDF format on some hard drive, somewhere.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

[donmoore]

Eric,
Thanks. Everything is clearer now. That vagus nerve stimulation opens up a whole new area to think about. I have heard that vagus nerve stimulation through electronic box implants is something that has been researched to help people with chronic depression and other mental disorders. Maybe this is why us freedivers, with stimulated vagus nerves through high CO2, are so mentally stable.

So I take it, when one is doing hyperventilating, they should do them with as little strain as possible.

If you have Peter Lindholm e-mail address, would you PM me it?

John Aderson, a 5:40 breathold without any training, is pretty impressive. I started way lower than that. I think you would get better “non technical” responses to your questions in the “Beginning Freediver” forum area. This thread is a pretty technical one about Eric Fattah’s CO2 body water / blood hypothesis.
don

[kook]

This is a mighty interesting thread. I'm just not quite shure I have it understood properly. As I understand it so far:
alkaline blood is good for statics; but then tylerz says lemon juice is not your friend cause it makes the blood more alkaline; but if this is true of fresh lemon juice only then old lemon juice is your friend?; also, i have a friend on the Finish freediving team who once told me they take bicarbonate of soda/baking powder for statics, isnt this an alkali?
Could someone explain it for me once and for all please if I should try fresh lemon juice or old lemon juice or bicarb or none of these?
K
and is all this talk about statics only and not constant weight diving? efattah said acidic blood was good for his diving but sucked for statics. should we be making clear the difference between the two. thank you

[Johnny Arizona]

Thanks, I'll go check that area out.

[efattah]

Taking sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) in water, is the ultimate most brutal and rapid way to make your body alkaline. However, if you take more than a gram or so, you will probably be running to the bathroom in agony. I have tried it, and it delays the contractions dramatically--however, being too alkaline is no good either.

BTW this is my 900th post!


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

[ADR]

Congrats on the 900 posts, I'm looking forward to your next 100 getting you to the big 1000. I think at 1000 DB should put you on a "DB hall of fame" list.

Andy