• Welcome to the DeeperBlue.com Forums, the largest online community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing. To gain full access to the DeeperBlue.com Forums you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:

    • Join over 44,280+ fellow diving enthusiasts from around the world on this forum
    • Participate in and browse from over 516,210+ posts.
    • Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
    • Post your own photos or view from 7,441+ user submitted images.
    • All this and much more...

    You can gain access to all this absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!

Doing O2/CO2 tables - Breathing rhythm in between breath holds

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.

E-P

Member
Mar 2, 2013
16
1
13
After doing a month of O2/CO2 tables I suddenly started to wonder this. In my AIDA II course I was taught breathing before breath hold as 6-8s inhale 70% lung capacity, exhale double the time, repeat ~5 times and then 3 times inhale/exhale 90% lung capacity (equal times) before taking the final breath.

So far I have applied this, but taken time off from the first step as there is no time to do te full cycle in between. However, I now started consider that maybe this is not the best method. So, the question is, is there a "standard-recommended" breathing technique inbetween the breath holds while doing O2/CO2 tables?

All discussion and advice much appreciated.
 
There is no "standard method" in doing tables. The basic idea of a CO2 table is to boost your CO2 levels to get your body used to hi levels of CO2. The idea of O2 tables is to lower you O2 saturation so you can get used to that.

In my opinion the best CO2 table is the "one breath" table - hold your breath until you are struggling, really uncomfortable, but not really trying for a max, then exhale once, inhale once and hold again until you are really struggling again. Repeat for 6-8 cycles.

For O2 tables, just hold your breath as long as you can for each cycle. Rest a few minutes between each hold.
There is no real "rule" about how you breathe-up for O2 tables. Just relax and recharge.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AlexbeeintheUK
If you train to "struggle" and be "really uncomfortable" you'll become more consistently uncomfortable and struggle more, which does not work towards making your dives more relaxed or pleasant.

Working towards more efficient dives would lead towards dropping the struggle and making your peace with where you are.

As for breathing rules, they are not a reliable way of preparing for anything really. Instead understands what your breathing does and how you want to achieve your dives' goals and you will be fine.

Sent from my HTC One S using Tapatalk
 
  • Like
Reactions: Penyu
For CO2 training I prefer 1-breath tables like above poster. Usually 8 repititions and a breathhold of 25-25 % of my max (depending on how often frequently I do them, this equals what I can do 8 times without feeling overly exhausted afterwards and recovering withi a couple of minutes). For both exhale and inhale, I try to do it as slow as possible and controlled, sometimes even pausing for a second when a contraction is coming.

For O2 training I prefer to keep the breathhold performance constant at ~ 80%, sometimess 90 % (for static)of max and repeat 3-5 times with rather long brakes with normal "shallow" breathing for like 4-5 mins and then take 4-5 deep but not max breathes that I release slowly (~2 mins).
 
DeeperBlue.com - The Worlds Largest Community Dedicated To Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing

ABOUT US

ISSN 1469-865X | Copyright © 1996 - 2024 deeperblue.net limited.

DeeperBlue.com is the World's Largest Community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving, Ocean Advocacy and Diving Travel.

We've been dedicated to bringing you the freshest news, features and discussions from around the underwater world since 1996.

ADVERT