Doing an inhale static with full, pack stretched lungs has a tremendous stretching effect, which is why I always do such 'uncomfortable' stretch statics in my warm up for static & constant weight. Last I heard Herbert was also doing 'uncomfortably' stretched statics in his warm up.
Concerning exhale statics, my experience is that most people do not exhale fully. Even without reverse packing, it takes a huge effort to exhale everything, and I'd expect to spend the better part of 10 seconds forcefully hunching over and exhaling.
Even leaving a small amount of air in the lungs has a dramatic effect on the time you will reach. Exhaling fully and forcefully, but not 'extremely' forcefully, gave me a pb of 2'51. Exhaling fully, and extremely long & forcefully drops my pb to 2'11 (or 2'19 with a samba). With reverse packing, I would probably samba around 1'40", and all these pb's are on days of 7'00"+ inhale statics.
I know Seb Murat said he managed a 3'30" full exhale static. I know Trevor Hutton said he once did a 4'00" exhale static, but it was not a forceful exhale.
Another VERY interesting test is this:
- Sit comfortably, without any special breathing, just a 'meditative' type passive relaxation, for several minutes
- You should notice almost no breathing (tiny, natural breaths)
- Once completely relaxed, from your 'neutral' natural breathing state, suddenly exhale all of your air, and forcefully exhale every drop for perhaps 8-10 seconds
- Hold your breath
- See how long you can go before you must inhale (it is almost impossible to B/O, but perhaps some of you still can)
- Once finished, rest for several minutes, with no deep breathing at all, and try again. You should probably improve on the 2nd and 3rd tries.
The longest I managed using this method was 1'15" before the urge to breathe was overwhelming. Contractions are almost impossible due to the totally empty lungs.
Here is another excruciating test which I now use as my warm up for static apnea:
- Using the same method as above, suddenly exhale all of your air.
- At the 30 second mark, pack 3 times.
- At the 40 second mark, pack 3 times.
- Keep packing 3 times until the lungs are full. It should take perhaps 4-5 minutes.
- You will probably start getting contractions around 0'50", and continue to get contractions until the end, meaning 4+ minutes of contractions.
- This test does not produce 'deep tissue hypoxia', but it massively blunts the breathing reflex, so on the very next apnea you can go for a pb
Eric Fattah
BC, Canada