Nearly Blackout?

[jay cluskey]

i did mean co2 thanks trux

[bite ya]

Thanks for everyones help, i'm off to the pool now with a little more confidence than i had from last weeks training.

Again thanks to ILDiver and Trux for your input, my training and progress has come on greatly since talking to you guy's. Would love to meet up one day but for now it's great having you guy's at the end of my laptop every week....

Chris

[Newbie_spearo]

Originally Posted by trux

the O2 is used also for breaking down cumulated acid lactic, so if you do not continue ventilating properly, you will black out or get samba easily. That's why we see most of sambas and blackouts after surfacing.

Would I be correct then in assuming that if you used a sports supplement which reduces the onset of lactic acid that this would decrease your chance of samba or black out if the situation was identical with not using the supplement? I didn't mean to cunfuse anyone. What I have said does make sense if you read it carefully.
The reason I ask is because I have a supplement which does exactly that: it reduces the onset of lactic acid during a work out allowing you to push a little farther while training before you get that burn. I can also say that it does work to a certain degree even if it is only 2or 3 reps more. The supplement is called Beta Alanine, it is fairly new and as a result not a great deal of testing has been done, but it is perfectly safe to use. It is a non-essential amino acid.

Also I was doing dynamics in a 50m pool a few weeks ago and got to the wall turned and began swimming back. My best dynamic is 70m but on this particular day I got about 10m from the wall after turning and everything got a little darker, like when the sun goes behind a cloud. So I surfaced immediately. about 2 or 3 mins later I tried again, this time the same thing happened but I was at about 40m so heading toward the wall at about the same point.

Sorry for hijacking the thread

[trux]

Originally Posted by Newbie_spearo

Would I be correct then in assuming that if you used a sports supplement which reduces the onset of lactic acid that this would decrease your chance of samba or black out if the situation was identical with not using the supplement?

In apnea you do not really want delaying the onset of lactic acid. The organism starts producing it when there is insufficient level of O2, so if you delay the switching to this anaerobic mode without giving the muscles additional oxygen, they will take all what's remaining in the blood, starving so the vital organs (brain, heaert) that still need the oxygen. I am afraid it would rather mean a more rapid blackout, than the opposite.

The lactic acid build-up or anaerobic metabolism is a quite desired state in apnea. You do not want to eliminate or delay it. It saves your oxygen. You rather want to build a more strong tolerance against high level of the acid.

Then again, Beta Ananine is not really a prohibitor of lactic acid, but rather helps the production of carnosine which is an important intramuscular buffer, and hence possibly might indeed help in apnea too.

However, I do not really know a lot about its practical use in apnea. There may be some undesired side-effect. I bet Eric Fattah would know more about it, and possibly already experimented with it. I did not see him frequently here on DB in the last weeks, but let's hope he peeks in and spots this thread.

[Newbie_spearo]

All seems to make sense to me apart from the beta alanine helping the production of carnosine. From my understanding and what I've learnt about it carnosine is a precursor to beta alanine there by making it the helper to beta alanine. I will do some more digging to see what I can find out about it all. One of my friends who I used to work with as a personal trainer is a nutritionist and one of the guys who got me into spearfishing so he very well might know it's effects on apnea.

Thanks for the insight, much appreciated Trux. Eric if you do stumble across this thread I would greatly appreciate any more information you might be able to convey.

[trux]

Originally Posted by Newbie_spearo

All seems to make sense to me apart from the beta alanine helping the production of carnosine. From my understanding and what I've learnt about it carnosine is a precursor to beta alanine there by making it the helper to beta alanine.

It is true that beta alanine is formed by the degradation of dihydrouracil and carnosine, but in the same time:

"Beta-alanine is the rate-limiting precursor of carnosine, which is to say carnosine levels are limited by the amount of available beta-alanine. Supplementation with beta-alanine has been shown to increase the concentration of carnosine in muscles, decrease fatigue in athletes and increase total muscular work done" [Wikipedia]

EDIT: However, personally I am rather opposed against taking any supplements - their long term side effects are usually not well studied, and you may well finished in a much worse state than you originally were, or with your health wrecked, after using them. The effect of carnosine for apnea is positive, but again there is barely someone who knows what effects and side-effects it exactly has. Using beta-alanine definitely presents diverse risks - you can find some documents about them on the web.

[Newbie_spearo]

Thanks trux, I believe in the use of supplements if used correctly and not for a prolonged period of time. Each to their own I guess, very good however to hear your thoughts on the issue.

[bite ya]

There has been some great info on this thread, think i should start another one titled suppliments? What does everyone think? Would be great to hear everyones opinion and what they take in terms of vits / mins and other suppliments to aid good health and performance.

Shall i start one?

[trux]

Originally Posted by bite ya

Shall i start one?

Well, there are already plenty of them here on DB, so better may be finding the most complete one and continue there. When looking for the threads, look up rather supplement than suppliment - I think it is more commonly spelled in that way. Also look for doping, drugs, diet, nutrition and other similar terms - there are indeed already many very informative threads here on DB.

[bite ya]

Thanks trux, looked up the apnea diet thread (9 pages of it!!) i've just bought a few lemons and some green tea....ha ha see what happens tonight when i train.

Thanks again, the thresd was very useful!!

[keyratfelix]

What has worked for me is exhaling 50-60 percent, take a quick breath not to deep just to get oxygen into your system then exhale fully. The most important thing is to continue to relax and concentrate on breathing even after surfacing. Feel your breath, think about it with a smile on your face... stay in water atleast a min, your heart rates a good indicator, let it recover from the lack of oyxgen.
Im not saying you dont do this already, just giving my experiance.
Good luck, be safe!

[bite ya]

Thanks Keyratfelix!

[Kattie]

I've been reading this thread with attention as I am quite new to freediving and was wondering if a person with a naturally low blood pressure is more likely to have a blackout than someone with a higher one?

[DeepThought]

Originally Posted by Kattie

I've been reading this thread with attention as I am quite new to freediving and was wondering if a person with a naturally low blood pressure is more likely to have a blackout than someone with a higher one?

That seems to be true.

[Bill]

"........a person with a naturally low blood pressure is more likely to have a blackout than someone with a higher one?"
Don't know the answer but my body seems to think so. Circumstantial evidence. All my life I've had low blood pressure. Even at age 60 morning bp of 110/60 P50 was common and resting after a long aerobic ride the numbers got ridiculous. After years of sometimes heavy static training, 120/80 p60 is as low as it gets in the morning. Many things have changed too. Older, a little fatter, less muscle, spare parts and no more hard three hour bike rides, things like that.