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Contractions and the need for breathing

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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allinapnea

New Member
Aug 12, 2005
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Hi all,

I've been here for quite some time now, without really posting much... Here goes...
I started to practice for freediving recently and I'm having the typical beginner's trouble with contractions.

I find them very uncomfortable and sometimes quite scary. On most breathholds I'm only able to stand 5-10 or so of them... How on earth do you real freedivers get through them? I hear some of you can stand contractions for minutes sometimes...
Second problem: on most occasions contractions come very early in a breath hold.

Will (extensive?) training help me to postpone contractions? Say: contractions start at 2:00 or so instead of 1:00?
Is there any specific training method/exercise to learn to deal with contractions, or is just: hold your breath as many times as you can and learn to put up with them?

Is there any difference between women and men? I ask this, because I'm a woman...

Thanks in advance!

Jo

PS: my personal best static is (dry): 3:00 - wet: 2:30...
 
To pass on what I learned here:

Just keep practicing.

The contractions may never become your friends, but at least they will become familiar.
 
start doing CO2 and H2O tables.
Should be actually CO2 and O2, better yet hypercapnic and hypoxic. You can do both types of table in H2O or dry, but if training in water, never do so without a permanent and direct supervision, a buddy checking your reactions regularly during the breath-hold!

Your resistance to contractions may considerably improve once you realize that despite what Hteas wrote, the contractions are your best friends in fact. The contractions help oxygenating the blood (by increasing the transpulmonary pressure), and supplying vital organs (brain, heart) with O2, by increasing blood pressure and helping to pump the blood around. They are also a signal the diving response kicked in properly, and that you are in the low consumption mode.

So once you realize that, the mental barrier may change and you may be able to face them much easier. You should also not try fighting the contraction by force (compensating with muscles), but rather accompanying them.
 
Contractions will be coming later with training, so you will have longer period of comfortable breath hold.

In regards to what exercises - I found the actual diving making the most sense. At least in a pool, fins or no fins, bubble rings, FRC etc - all good. Dry practices like apnea walk or tables are taking away from from the pleasure of sport with very questionable progress. I still do apnea walk sometmes though.

There is a difference between men and women of course. We don't have boobs and generally prefer beer to dark chocolate.
 
allinapnea my dry PB is also about 3 min (3:15) with 50 contractions counted.
When I was doing CO2 tables for one month contraction were much more easier to stand.

Trux I know that it is from person to person, but when doing dry static, and contractions starts at 1:40, how much of them I can have before LMC or BO? Is there any average number of them or maybe time calculated from time without them. If we say that preparation is OK and without HW, packing, etc.
I can see my DR when contractions starts. HR drops from 90-105 to 70-80 after just few contractions. At the end I start to have 2 contractions per second and it is wey hard to stand.
I know that on this question is hard to answer, but I also know that you have much, much experience and knowledge, so maybe you can give some wise answer.
 
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Thanks again, all of you for the reply!

Uhm...@Andrew the fish: "FRC", what's that? I've read it on the board here, but can't figure out what it means?
 
No, it is not hard to answer. The contractions are not only dependent on the person, but also on plenty other factors. So for example if you hyperventilate sufficiently, you will black out before even getting any contraction. If you start heavily loaded with CO2 (as in many hypercapnic exercises), the cotnractions will start quite early, but the hypoxic blackout will be less likely. There is a strong link between the CO2 level (resp. the blood acidity) and the level of hypoxia you can withstand without blacking out - the more CO2 you have the deeper into hypoxia you can go. In other words, CO2 is unpleasant (in in high concetrations toxic), but it helps the vital organs to squeeze more O2 from the blood (look up Bohr effect).

That's exactly why hyperventilation is so dangerous - beginners usually tend to believe they stock much more oxygen in their lungs (which is practically wrong), but do not realize that they not only suppress the urge to breathe (which alone is already dangerous), but also because they reduce their hypoxic tolerance and will blackout quicker.
 
Thank you Trux for your answer.
After 2:30 dry static I start to have 2 contr. per second and it was very hard to stand against, but oxy said I think 94 SpO2. Is that normal?
 
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As I explained, contractions and the level of CO2 are not in direct correlation with O2 - you can have high CO2 (and strong contractions) while being close to 100% on O2, and you can also be low on CO2, while being quite low on O2 too. So it is not a good way to use the contractions or urge to breathe as the idicator of hypoxia.But otherwise, yes - strong contractions (as long as you do not excessively hyperventilate) usually come still when the O2 is rather high.
 
Allinapnea, read up on FRC, someone posted links earlier. I am not sure if it ever been covered though - the effect of FRC training on overall anaerobic performance. To me, FRC was something that moved me forward quite a bit, in training and on actual open water dives. I do FRC warm up dive early and fairly shallow - 5m maybe, and then ride the effect in all consecutive dives. Trux or someone may have an explanation, I don't, I just use this effect.
 
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Jo, I find doing dry tables does help me - if I can deal with contractions when doing dry then its good mental practical for dealing with them wet. I also find that keeping calm and accepting them helps to deal with them. If I get worried about them, then I physically tense up and that only makes them worse, not to mention does nothing in helping me to remain relaxed and uses up precious O2.

To use an example of my most recent dry CO2 tables this week. I did 8x 2 min holds without planning 2 min ones but it just went that way because I was really relaxed and didn't focus on the clock, I decided to just go on feel and when I thought it was getting close to the end of the hold time. Until recently I finding holds over 1.15 hard as the contractions came on from then and I would start clock watching, which then affected the holds. The other day I just did my relaxation technique and focused on that. When the contractions started, they started softly and while they got more frequent, they never increased in intensity. I was surprised when I got to the end of the hold and looked at the clock just before that to find it was 2 mins.

I don't know how to explain it, but I notice that I am able to reduce the intensity and frequency just by relaxing, and I think, by not thinking about them. I notice that they are there, but don't focus my thoughts on them, rather just notice them and then go back to focusing on my relaxation technique. It is like calm thoughts can calm the contractions. I highly recommend learning yoga, relaxation techniques or meditation to help with the mind/body.
 
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