Elite freedivers and high altitude

[Drowned Fish]

A good part of your life have been spent in the mountains. You can easily defeat a 1900m mountain pass with 40kgs on your back given 3-4 hours. At the same time you have been freediving passionately for several years and you are ranked as one of the top 20 freediving athletes in the world. You can tolerate very low O2 levels before BO, and your legs works well even in a highly lactic state.

Given this, can you easily skip up to Mount Everest and handle the thin air without any O2 supplements? I just watched a documentary on the extreme physical requirements for being able to reach the top of the world without O2 flasks (and even with) and began thinking that a world class free diver must have some form of advantage over others because of the parallels in high altitude climbing and freediving. Both have elements in which the brain needs to handle low levels of O2.

Of course there are a lot of other crucial considerations, but will the freediver have any edge over a pro mountaineer? Just splashing some thoughts here. It has probably been discussed before, but my browser wouldn't let me search today...

 

[Tommy_R]

Annelie Pompe should have some answers to that question, she is one of the deepest women and is also pretty serious in mountaineering ( everest ?)


Tommy

 

[efattah]

The adaptations for altitude are different than for freediving. Although a freediver might have good tolerance of hypoxia and lactic acid, some of the adaptations are opposite. A freediver wants as few capillaries as possible in the muscles (to reduce blood flow to the muscles); the high altitude climber wants as many capillaries as possible, to increase blood flow to the muscles. A freediver wants a very high CO2 tolerance; a high altitude climber wants zero CO2 tolerance (to stimulate hyperventilation).

 

[Walid]

Hi Eric,

Are you saying that living in altitude develops the wrong skills for a freediver?

I lived and started my freediving competitive career in Bogota (2.600m asl), doing mainly pool training and other water-related sports (finswimming, UWR), plus some running.

I've noticed, when I used to go to some freediving competition at sea level, a strange tendency to easily hyperventilate during breath up, which messed up many of my immersions (both in pool and at depth).. of course I felt the tremendous effect of natural "doping" altitude gives, but it seems there are some undesirable side-effects.

Cheers,

 

[Drowned Fish]

The adaptations for altitude are different than for freediving. Although a freediver might have good tolerance of hypoxia and lactic acid, some of the adaptations are opposite. A freediver wants as few capillaries as possible in the muscles (to reduce blood flow to the muscles); the high altitude climber wants as many capillaries as possible, to increase blood flow to the muscles. A freediver wants a very high CO2 tolerance; a high altitude climber wants zero CO2 tolerance (to stimulate hyperventilation).

Your points are valid, but I believe that one does not exclude the other. In my example the freediver is eating mountains for breakfast and as a consequense his leg muscles has loads of capillaries feeding rather large muscles. This might, as you say, be a disadvantage while freediving, but if he is able to go into MDR before the dive not too much more oxygen will get wasted using them, and because of their size they can do more work with less effort (with a larger lactic acid "capacity") before lactic failure.

Even if our freediver has high CO2 tolerance, it doesn't keep him from conciously hyperventilating (although it might add to the mental strain of such a difficult climb).

I'm not an MD, so I might be far off the mark.

 

[BatRay]

Is there some element of freediving training that would limit the number of capillaries? I'm genuinely curious, as I haven't heard of that as something that you can control.

 

[Walid]

The simple fact of not breathing while doing an aerobic exercice limits the capillarization.

 

[chrismar]

Annelie did Everest, though I don't know that it was freediving that helped with that. Get in contact with her or Sebastian Naslund - they're the best people to talk about this that I know.

 

[efattah]

The freediver's CO2 tolerance likely stems from elevated buffers. At altitude you want your kidneys to eliminate buffers so you can hyperventilate without losing the Bohr effect. This is not something you control consciously; a freediver who deliberately hyperventilates at altitude will BO from absent Bohr effect. Time at altitude may cause the kidneys to adjust, but you would be starting from a disadvantage.

 

[Drowned Fish]

Eric, you make more sense than I do. Thanks!