Military apnea training

[cebaztian]

What kind of military apnea training do we have out there?

I publish a "postcard" from german Andreas Guldner in german "apnea bootcamp". It might inspire other stories to submerge.
freediving - military training

Sebastian

[trux]

Does waterboarding used by US military interrogators also belong here? There are some links here:
Waterboarding - WikiPedia, the free encyclopedia
ABC News: History of an Interrogation Technique: Water Boarding
David Corn

WikiPedia writes among others: "CIA officers who subject themselves to the technique last an average of 14 seconds before caving in."

I think it is a typo and should be rather 40 seconds. However, even 40 seconds seems a pretty bad static performance for such tough boys as the CIA men. They may need some freediving training too. Terrorists, resistance fighters, and those many innocents who fill the prisons might profit from it too. Being able to hold your breath until blacking out would make the technique useless. On the other hand, I wonder how would a trained freediver react in such stressful situation, and possibly some preceding beating, heating and cooling, dehydration, sleep deprivation, noise torture, and other approved interrotation techniques - the heart rate may be higher than one would have at a competition, and maybe it is not as easy as it may look like for us who use to torture ourselves in this way regularly.

It was made known that US interrogators used to run "horse-race" like competitions with their prisoners, betting on their times. They rarely made it over 1 minute. Allegedly, the waterboarding record was created by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who held 2.5 minutes. They do not write though if he managed completing his surfacing protocol properly. Anyway, I think he deserves an entry in the Special Records / Amazing Apnea section at ApneaMania - Bill should consider adding him there.

[shoutatthesky]

Jeez! It is amazing they only have an attrition rate of 75% That is some tough and dangerous training

[jome]

There is a documentary about finnish navy combat diver training made, at least parts of it available in you tube.

It is in finnish, but you can see some of the workouts from there:

YouTube - Sorsanpojat - Ducklings 1/6 (1/18)

At least a few freedivers I know have completed either that or the mine clearance program. They'd be better to comment, but from what I've heard, sounds pretty similar to what Andreas has gone through. Puking in the pool and BOs not being totally unfamilliar, and always very physical, none of that "relax into the feeling"-type of thing we usually do

Personally, I think the military could update parts of the training just a bit. Their conception of freediving dates pretty far back. Then again, it is not really their objective to produce freedivers, but guys who can remain calm and in control even if there is a bit of physical labor and equipment failures involved...