Get high and get on down: a response

[ADR]

I probably should have explained how it works. The mouthpiece is a standard snorkel mouthpiece connected to a plumbing 90 degree bend (this has two one way flapper valves inside it). THe exhaled breathe heads down into the wine cask bladder. On inhale the air heads out of the bladder and over to the CO2 scrubber(soda lime). THe pipe goes all the way to the bottom of the soda lime and the air travels up through the soda lime and then out through the second pipe back to the mouth piece. the sensor is right next to the pipe heading back for the inhale. In addition there is an extra pipe which also goes to the bottom of the soda lime and has a valve on it outside of the container (this valve allows me to vary the amount of fresh air that is mixed with the system allowing me to maintain a constant O2 % in the system. THe voltmeter reads from the sensor (5.5 mV relates to just over 10%.)

regards

Andy

[BennyB]

Hey Andy - did your wife get angry when you drank all the wine then pulled the vacuum cleaner apart?

I just tried some exhale holds. I got to 10 - 30 seconds with a couple of holds without hyperventilation before the intense urge to breath got the better of me. After a minute of hyperventilation though my holds extended to 1:30 and 1:40, with a comfortable period of about 1:10 each time. And I was able to expend more air each time. I was very surprised the comfortable period lasted this long.

This is interesting, i'd like to see how this translates to actual results in a couple of weeks time.

Cheers,
Ben

[Pablo]

ADR... this looks like a reabreather to me!!! are you shifting sides If any condensation gets on your CO2 filter you could poisson yourself... is one of the common causes of accidents with rebreathers!

My hypoxic training consist in keeping the head under the duvet... total relaxation state, low O2 and hight CO2 levels, and for once a painless exercise...

Will: does push the tongue back down the throat limit the contractions???

[ADR]

Pablo,

Actually I came to freediving "from the dark side of the force" a few years ago. I was a back yard trimix blending DIR converted tech diver and now all that gear gathers dust in the shed and my drysuit seals have perished!

I'll never go back!!

It's good that you mentioned the condensation as the scrubber was nice and dry inside until I stopped using it and then the moisture in the system condensed on the side of the container......any hints on how to solve this?

Benny - Sarah was rather unamused by the aquisition of some parts but I think it was the biscuit tin (scrubber canister) that most bothered her. After almost ten years she is finally getting use to losing all of her tupperware containers and measuring cups to mixing resin

A couple of questions for those in the know.
1. What blood tests are worth getting before and after embarking on a hypoxic training program
2. What progrmas are typically used for IHT?

thanks

Andy

[Pablo]

Not sure, the one building reabreathers is a friend living on the dark side... and is not having any chance in converting me over But the way I see your set up, if you train a cold morning one of your your "tracheas" could condensate and some liquid water drop on the filter (I can't see the lung connection, but he looks like that the breath out is on the right, your left ).

It may be safer to breath on the lung, then redirect the flow to the CO2 filter, and place a paper filter to stop any nasty particles on the way to your lungs.

If the lung is at a slight lower pressure than the "trachea" there is a better chance to force any condensation to happen on the lung... you could constrain the lung entry to have a slight pressure build up on the "trachea". If the lung is on a cold middle any condensation should be on the lung... away from the soda lime.
If the filter is higher than the lung, any other condensation should fall away... instead driping in.

The best would be to look at how a reabreather or other similar machine is dealing with the issue...

Yes! I can see the tech diving gear behind you couch...

[ADR]

Hi Pablo,

Many people might think that the trolley in the background with bumble bee insignia belongs to my 3yr old but I'm impressed that you recognise it as my DIR tech diving transport mechanism

The exhaled air does actually go to the bladder prior to the scrubber and most condensation does occur there and only occurs at the scrubber after I stop the session. I'm going to add some water traps in both tubes just to be safe and also keep an eye on the scrubber during use given that it is clear plastic. I'll also add a water trap in the bottom of the scrubber for a "belt and bracers" approach to safety.

thanks for the tips

Andy

[Altitude Centre]

Andy,

We sell re-breathers to perform IHT on our website. These start from £425 and come with an IHT protocal and spare filter. Maybe not as much fun as building your own.

You might find some spare parts to perfect your home kit here http://www.altitudecentre.com/shop/i...hp?cPath=32_40

Regards

Richard

[Alun]

Richard,

how many hour long sessions did Mark undertake during those 3 weeks? you said that Mark's Hb didn't increase during that time. is that unusual after such treatment? what kind of increase would you normally expect? what is the maximum rate of increase in Hb given a strong enough hypoxic stress and adequate diet?

thanks for writing these articles - very interesting.
well done for rowing across the pond - respect.

[Altitude Centre]

Alun

Mark did 15 x 1 hour sessions. 5 minutes hypoxic, 5 minutes ambient air. In carefully controlled scientific studies (such as the one conducted by Dr John Hellemans with Lincoln University, New Zealand) elite level athletes increased their hemoglobin (number of red blood cells) levels by 2.5% and hematocrit (% of red blood cells) by 3.6% and reticulocytes (young red blood cells) by 14.6% following a 3 week course of IHT (15 sessions). Blood parameters are commonly studied to indicate physiological changes, however the story is a lot more complicated than that, and still not fully understood. People adapt to cope with reduced oxygen in different ways and blood parameters are just one adaptation mechanism displayed. To understand it fully you have to look at it from a sub cellular level and it gets a bit more complicated there.

If you purely want to see changes in Hemoglobin, make sure you eat lots of spinach to keep your iron levels high!

Regards

Richard

[Alun]

interesting. 2.5%... that's less than i expected. that's like increasing from 15.0 to 15.4 g/dl. you'd need a pretty accurate instrument to pick up that change!

how long would you expect it to take for the effect to be reversed (or 90% reversed) after the end of the course? can you put a rough figure on that?

[Altitude Centre]

2.5% is quite significant if you are looking to eclipse a record. This is a mean score, taken from a group of athletes, some individuals rose more, some less. Hemoglobin is not the only parameter you should look to increase to improve your tolerance to hypoxia. In answer to the second part of your question, Red blood cells last for 90 days, so in theory you should benefit for 3 months. In practice you are at your peak for the a month after you stop the stimulus, some say you should use IHT right up to a competition, other say you should stop a week before competition, again it is up to the individual.

Sorry no more questions. Some of us have work to do!

Richard

[AltSaint]

A few specifics about my blood analysis ( as I was the guinea pig ):

Final readings -

Haemoglobin G/Dl - 14.9

Red Cell count - 4.36 x10^12/L ( don't ask me what the units are, but it's a low value )

Haematocrit - 0.416 ( also low )

MCH - 34.1 PG ( high )

MCHC - 35.8 G/DL ( high )

I didn't have a pre-training test to compare, but Alun had measured my haemoglobin levels in July, and they were about the same ( if not slightly more ).

As Richard suggests, the blood tests in their own right are inconclusive - it looks like something else is happening at the cellular level to account for the increased buffering tolerance.

Something for someone somewhere to research?
Mark

[donmoore]

This is an incredibly interesting thread and the article by Richard was equally interesting. Sebastien achievement of maintaining 63% Hct amazing! Sebastien, are you saying you achieved this through dry empty lung breatholds? I thought you spent a huge amount of time in the water. If your Hct success was through dry, empty lung statics, then that is inspiring because it means anyone has the tools needed to do!

A question, if one does negative pack, dry statics, will there be a negative pressure in the lungs and thus make PaO2 less than ambient?

PS Andy, awesome job of making your own hypoxicator. Let us know how it works for you.
don

[sebastien murat]

Don,

Personally, I don't do any dry apneas as it isn't specific enough for what I do; I' into actual diving and not statics for theior own sake. My adaptations are therefore all water-based. Nevertheless, it would still be possible to achieve an elevated Hct dry. Nevertheless, the dive response in the dry, which can be trained, is not well developed. A strong dive response may, on the other hand, make reaching low PaO2 more difficult since the muscles can tire quickly, if one is exercising, as these shift from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism. A strong dive response should be sought (exhale apnea + exercise + cold water) if one wants to develop elevated MbO2 stores since the muscles will run out of O2 very quickly.

PaO2 is always less than ambient except during descents to depth. Even then it will inevitably drop also.

Cheers
Seb

[donmoore]

I have been playing with this over the last two days. If Mark Harris can increase his time from 6:30 to 7:00 in three weeks, and Sebastian Murat and Eric Fattah say it can be done with empty lung dry statics, I can’t help but be interested!

I decided to do it each day for seven sets, because that’s what how many sets it looked like Richard Pullan had Mark Harris do from the graph in the article. I decided to speed up the process by fully forcefully exhaling and then doing 3 negative packs. Since I have a spirometer I’m used to fully exhaling so I know my lungs were to residual. I could definitely feel the negative pressure on my lungs and thorax after the three negative packs and it was a little uncomfortable.

The first day I took my SaO2 down to 83% 7 times. I took between 1:31 and 1:56 to achieve this with the high of 1:56 on the third static. My times were bell shape if you were to graph them.

Today was the second day and it was my goal to go down to 80% seven times. But my body must have had different plans, because starting with the first static at about 30 seconds I started having terrible contractions. With the negative pressure, it felt like my inside was going to implode! This was with Sebastian’s recommendation of hyperventilating before hand to lower CO2. I bailed out at 56 seconds with only a 98% on the oximeter. I could only manage 98% on the second set too, but this time it was for 1:23.

With the third set the contractions finally subsided to where the pain was manageable, although I am worried what my assistant on the other side of the close door at work is thinking of me now! The noises, I couldn’t help but make, trying to last through the contractions with negative pressure- sounded terrible! This time I made it to 2:10 before hitting 83% SaO2. The 4th through 7th holds I held until 80%.

I don’t necessary think that the contracts were a result of doing them a second day. It maybe, but I have experienced some days where contractions were just plain severe for no reason I could conclude. I’ve noticed that if I can muster the strength to continue on those days, I usually get pretty good results, but sometimes its more than I can bear.

Another thing I have noticed is that my SaO2 stays pretty high, but when it gets past about 93% it falls like a rock. It’s even hard some times to stop the stop watch when it reaches 83% or 80% it’s falling so fast.

Observations and recommendations please! Should I just passively exhale and forego the negatives? Can having contractions with negative lung pressure hurt me?
Thanks,
don