a new PB and stragne near blackout...advice needed

[sazza]

all, still very new to this i am training with a great bunch of people in Richmond each week.

At present i am sticking with static until I build up a reasonable amount of time confidence and money to buy new kit!!!

week on week i have seen some slow progression nothing major and am still settling in and trying to find my way as it where....

every static breath hold i do is different as yet there seems to be no pattern other than very strong contractions early on...and occasionally a hot head..or colours.....and my best so far had been 2.32, i have always been very conservative and come up early rather than late never wanting to push myself too far.....

after a two week break and a holiday scuba diving and no dry practice it was back to the pool.....

so last night started slowly at a 1.45 then a 2.25 ( i came up on strong contractions and a hot head and jelly legs......then came the third....

all was normal or so i thought.....finally settling into a nice little visualization of dolphins....the strong contractions started....for how long i do not know but at one point i seemed to have drifted so far into my visulaization i can recall nothing...then all of a sudden i seemed to almost 'come back' and a really strong contraction forced me to breath out heavily......after which i was up immediatley and very dizzy and shaky legged.....

my buddy had been just about ready to pull me out and another memeber also rushed over incase....when id recovered...Ben said i due to the loss of what was going on i could have well been close to the point of blackout and to think and remeber how i felt so as to learn the signs etc...during these discussions i then learnt i had reached my PB of 2.38 a 6 second advance on a previous pb and a 13 second increase on the last hold....

on the way home contemplating and searching i realised the odd thing which i would like to hear your opinions/thoughts on.........

as far as im aware i didnt push myself i wasnt forcing for a pb and there were no signs other than the contractions which are always strong.......no colours no hot head......nothing...all i was aware of was being very deep in my visulisation and no awareness of anything else (bar the taps which i had been responding to).......

thanks in advance.......

[naiad]

Originally Posted by sazza

as far as im aware i didnt push myself i wasnt forcing for a pb and there were no signs other than the contractions which are always strong.......no colours no hot head......nothing...all i was aware of was being very deep in my visulisation and no awareness of anything else (bar the taps which i had been responding to).......

Hi Sazza, I was also in Richmond yesterday (Lucia)!
That has happened to me - there is not always a warning or strange feeling before a blackout. It could be because of the longer time, or because of a different breathe-up. Do you always do the same breathe-up? Were you feeling cold?

[Akoni]

Sounds like you fell asleep, it has happened to me.

[BennyB]

You had what i'd class as a classic little samba. A few seconds after you'd come up (another guy was safetying, I had just finished my own static) I noticed you you were very dark in the face/lips. You were a bit bug-eyed and had a pretty vacant stare, then you kind of grabbed for the lane rope and had some tremors in your hands. Not what i'd call a bleedingly obvious samba, but i've got the (dubious) advantage over a lot of the Richmond guys in that i've competed a bit and seen plenty of sambas now, so I can recognise the smaller ones a bit better than the other non-competing guys there.

Couple of points:

* Like I said last night, try to recall your thoughts/feelings (mental and physical) at the time towards the end and recognise them all as signals.

* Food - had you eaten before coming? Give yourself 4 hours away from food before apnea. Coffee? Red Bull? Sugar? Give caffeine about 12 hours to leave your system, and sugary things a few hours.

* Don't bust out of the static like you've escaped from gaol - nice and slow, don't try and stand up, just maintain your airway. It takes the body at least 6 seconds for your first breath to start refueling so no need to add more stress to it in that period. Your tremors were about 10 seconds after you'd surfaced which to me indicates not enough O2 getting into you after you surfaced, which brings up the next point.

* Most important - BREATH after you've come up. I noticed you didn't do much breathing after you surfaced and this can be an almost guaranteed BO kickstart. Plenty of people do it mind you, not sure why but a lot of people don't breath immediately after they surface. My rule of thumb is surface, 5 good breaths before anything else, then do your surface protocol, whilst still breathing.

* Even more most important - you didn't smack me one when I put my arm under yours. That's good

Keep in mind - it was a SMALL samba, I wouldn't worry a great deal. Great to know that you're asking lots of questions about it, it's the best way of learning from these things.

Cheers,
Ben

[sazza]

Thanks all for the help and comments!!!!