Dry apnea safety

[Waterenthusiast]

I have already posted this in another thread, i think this is a safety factor a bit different than BO's but still not to underestimate.

Hi everyone,
I also did some apnea jogging 2 years ago but injured myself and still suffer the consequences When jogging you experience at every step light shocks ( which doesn't happen while walking). Now the problem is that through holding your breath with full lungs, your ribcage becomes quite rigid and can't absorb very well this shocks, and if your lucky enough like me, this leads to slightly dislocate a rib at its joint on the spine. Now I have chronic pain in my back till that incident and the docs can't really help me My advice, be carefull and don't inflate your lungs to much so that your thorax stays flexible.

Be careful and have fun,

Christophe

[naiad]

Another risk to be aware of is falling over in a dangerous position. I once read in the paper about a writer who lived in a flat in North London. She was found dead in her flat, having fallen in 'a bizarre position'. The police found it very difficult to work out what had happened, as there was no evidence of foul play, suicide or illness. They concluded that she had somehow fallen in this position, perhaps unconscious, and been unable to breathe.

Of course things like that are freak accidents, but we should be very careful about dry training alone.

[opllars]

I have a question that I have wanted to ask someone for 10 years, but didnt know who to ask.
I hope someone at this forum can help!

I once was taught a breathing exercise which is very close to what I can see divers call "dry apnea", but done in a little different way, were you breath in - take 20 paces while walking - breath out and in again. This is done for 10 minuttes. Next day take 16 steps,... and increase as much as possible.
I did this for some month and was amazed about the immediate increase of vitality, power, ooncentration etc.
The explanation was that holding the breath repetetively like this, increase the relative blood flow to the brain, as oxygen to the brain has highest priority in the body. Then as returning to normal breathing, the brain for a while will get MORE oxygen than usual, which explains the energy boost that is experienced. I found that the exercise increased my condition in many ways. In a month or so I was able to double the ammount of paces, - a 100% increase! Even though I got so good results from doing it and I also really enjoyed it (I almost felt adicted to these walks, as I could increase my wellbeing in only 10 minuttes - faster than by any other physical exercise), I stopped practicing it, as I had never heard about this kind of breathing exercise before, besides from this teacher. I was afraid it could cause damage. I was aware that my pulse would get very fast, and at one time I felt dizzy and when I checked my pulse, it felt like there were blood streaming but without a distinctive pulse, so I got afraid of doing the exercise and stopped.
Today I tried it, and I can still feel the positive effect from it 2 hours later. You know the wellbeing like after running.
Do you think that its riskfree to do this exercise?.....
Have any of you tried to do "apnea" exercise the way I describe?
And do you think that this way of doing it is more safe than the usual way divers do it?
Do you think that it has a positive influence on the health to do this exercise or does it just feel that way?


Thanks,
Ole

[Drejcha]

opllars, what you were/are doing is very similar to pranayama. This word is used as a technical term in yoga, often translated as breath control. Basically it is about breathing at different speed and time intervals. Tempo is determined by counting, heart beats or, in your case, paces. There is many tipes of different techniques of pranayama. Yogis (preople practicing yoga) belive with it a man can control life energy... looong story (google has bunch of it).

But some serious medical researches have been done about that. From wiki:

Medical claims:
Several researchers have reported that pranayama techniques are beneficial in treating a range of stress related disorders, improving autonomic functions, relieving symptoms of asthma, and reducing signs of oxidative stress. Practitioners report that the practice of pranayama develops a steady mind, strong will-power, and sound judgement, and also claim that sustained pranayama practice extends life and enhances perception.

It looks there really is a positive influence of that kind of breathing you described. I think there is only one rule for any action in life - (train) don't strain.

Of course, in yoga, they do it perfectly still, sitting in a weird positions. Which is pain in the brain (an ass) for me. I have to mooooove!

I did some classical STA tables, but... well - it's TOO static for me Becouse people drive like crazy around here unfortunately I couldn't do it on bike as well (I have to be prepeared to climb on a traffic light if a car turns towards me ). Good alternative is to climb up the hills with 10 or 20 liters (3 or 6 gallons) of water in a backpack and some extra weihts on feet + breathing like opllars described it.
It's hilarious how people look at you and think "oh dear, this girl is really not fit, going that slow and breathing so hard"
I'd rather do it with a sparing partner anyway. They are so hard to find... I'm trying to try to try to try... not to push it too hard because getting dizzy on stone pavement is not a good idea. People die for slipping on icy sidewalks... But, of course, I never think of that (in time)

[opllars]

Thanks Drejcha,

Yes, I know about the use of breath control in yoga. Also that these are beneficial to the health.
You say:'Train-dont strain', and this (strain) is exactly what Im doing when using this exercise. I forgot to mention that doing 'apnea' this way, is like putting strain on the body little by little - the first 5-6 minutes is not hard, but the last minutes ARE, and I wonder how my eyes look, when I pass some other people on the street :-)))
I guess the point in doing it this way, is that the body have time to accommodate. The difference is similar to doing weight lifting with small weight, many repetitions. And like it is the heavy weight that builds muscles, maybe this way of doing it would not help me so much staying under water for a long period of time, I dont know.
But it certainly strengthens something. I am just a little worried if it is safe to do, and if I run a risk by forcing myself to increase the paces I take.

[Drejcha]

Originally Posted by opllars

Thanks Drejcha,

Yes, I know about the use of breath control in yoga. Also that these are beneficial to the health.
You say:'Train-dont strain', and this (strain) is exactly what Im doing when using this exercise. I forgot to mention that doing 'apnea' this way, is like putting strain on the body little by little - the first 5-6 minutes is not hard, but the last minutes ARE, and I wonder how my eyes look, when I pass some other people on the street :-)))

Well, I guess it has to be "a little" hard when you work out if you want to get higher. No one will be able to tell you exactly where the limits of your body (and mind) are - it's up to you to determine that. It's even difficult to say which hart rate is "wright" (highest) for the apnea. Some say 140/min, but I can push it much higher and still progressing faster with my STA. It easy goes up to 200/min. And I am well trained (hope that doesn't sound too self-sufficient, just a fact). That is against all the rules, pulse "should be" lower for me as a long route runner. They say I should have a terrible muscle pain after holding HR on 180 for an our or two. I don't. In fact, I feel great, all the tension is out of my body, I can work more sufficient... So - what should I do? Lie in bed and trying not to get upset so my HR would'nt go to fast? Just listen to your body. When you feel tired next day or two or your results starts to go down it's time to ease. Loosing weight is possible indicator of pushing too hard. Etc.
Discover. Explore. Try some different sports and training methods from there on shakedown flight. Change enviroment, intensity of training so your body doesn't get lazy. Kiss a girl, no fear And most important - have fun (it's hard to have fun when training like an animal). If you are not planinng to be a world champ next season there's no need for killing yourself, aye?

I guess the point in doing it this way, is that the body have time to accommodate. The difference is similar to doing weight lifting with small weight, many repetitions. And like it is the heavy weight that builds muscles, maybe this way of doing it would not help me so much staying under water for a long period of time, I dont know.

1st sentence - yes. Body accomodation has limits and we are far from reaching those limits in apnea.
The rest is just my theory and it could be wrong: walking apnea might not be all adjustable to lifting weights. Small weight + many repetions = endurance. The muscle fibre that is involved here is the slow twitch muscle which carries O2. For that aerobic training is needed -> outcome: more red muscle fiber that will store more O2. I consider aerobic training slightly more important because of that (and a good thing to start with).

With walking apnea muscles are doing anaerobic training, muscles are getting use to work with small amount of O2 in blood. That is 2nd step and also very important for spearfishing or "just" swimming under water. At the same time, of course, body starts to accomodate to higher level of CO2, but that accomodation can be done only with static as well.

And now the funny part: comparing training programmes of the greatest freedivers these days you can find out that they diverse a lot. Every athlet picks (developes) training that seems to fit (only) him best. My best guess is we just don't now (yet) how to do it so limits could be reached (as they are, for instance, in skiing).

...

...
Ahhh... and I thought I was going to study die so-called-terrible Maschinenelemente. Très optimiste.

[trax0]

is it possible to have a seizier while doing this?

[Lazuli]

Originally Posted by trax0

is it possible to have a seizier while doing this?

Absolutely. A seizure does not have to be Grand Mal. You can provoke many different kinds of seizures and syncope events (vaso vagal syncope etc). I had a seizure a few hours after dry apnea training and gave the practice up completely. It may not have caused my syncope with convulsions but it may have provoked it through placing an abnormal strain on my body. Anyhow, personally I did not notice improvements in my freediving from dry statics.