Exhale Diving for the "average" diver

[harbour seal]

For those interested, I would add that doing all your training at FRC volume reduces your apnea capacity during a full inhale or packing.

I believe it is because the 2,3-DPG level in your blood is modified and optimized for your lung volume. This controls the 'left or right shift' of the Hb-O2 dissociation curve.

I once did a hard phase of FRC training, and went to a competition and competed with inhale+packing. My performances were reduced compared to previously, even though my FRC performances were huge at the time.

The key way to watch or monitor this effect is simple. Upon starting FRC training, you will find that your FRC & exhale static times increase, and your inhale (or packing) static times decrease.

So, I think this effect would limit anyone who attempts to compete in one event with packing and another event at FRC, in the same competition. Personally I think that would be very hard to do.

eric,

i recently made a similar observation in my own training, but instead noticed a reduction of frc+static ability as inhale abilities increased.

over the winter, i trained repeated frc+static swims in the pool but in the last 3-4 weeks started doing 30min+ of inhale dynamics at the end of each session: approx 16x50m dynamic repeats---swim 50sec, rest 70sec continuous laps --- slow for many but breaking new ground for me.

as my inhale dynamic abilities increased (noticeably) each session and became my temporary focus, my frc+static swims seemed to get harder and harder. in a recent pool session i noticed a 20-30% reduction in frc+static ability (measured either by total dive time or distance), this effect i am assuming coming from the month of adding inhale dynamics to my training.

the reduction in frc seemed confusing until i read your post; i had initially hypothesized it to dietary changes, although i couldn't find any supporting data. through that period, i started taking a twice daily anti-inflammatory concoction to help ongoing knee and back problems: 1/2 tbsp fresh grated ginger, 1/2 tsp tumeric powder, and 1/2 tsp cayenne powder in warm water. the tumeric also helps mitigate gas/stomach issues associated with eating lots of legumes and pseudograins.

i had another personal frc observation regarding caffeine:
in my training experience, i rarely if ever get lactic legs as i am not training maximums but instead train frc+static repeats to mimic serial diving. prior to my last pool session, i took some added caffeine with my daily coffee in the form of cacao nibs; the added caffeine kick seemed to strengthen my dive response as my first few frc+static dives produced a much more uncomfortable static and then noticeably lactic legs in the last third of the swim. i may be off base, but this seems similar to sebastian murat's observations (in db posts) that his best frc+static dives, with associated strongest dive response, came when he started the dive with an elevated heart rate and anxiety. perhaps caffeine may have some benefit to frc diving in the form of strengthened dive response? but i wonder if the associated physiological effects are helpful overall?

cheers,
sean
vancouver, canada

 

[fflupo]

i did some test ascents from 50m and… measured my time on the way up:

my continues stroke.. and stroke-glide makes not a big difference only my COD goes up

for recreational 3-mm dives i use 2 kg; but if i plan to go deeper i go without any

any thoughts/experiences out there for the spine?

 

[Ulf]

What is COD?

 

[Jon]

perhaps caffeine may have some benefit to frc diving

I can drink coffee AND freedive? Sign me up!:friday

Actually, I've been playing around with it all winter and love how easy it is to sink- no counting kicks to reach neutral, just tip over and fall. I also dropped 10 pounds off of my winter belt- using a 6mm suit in 36F water.

Since we are pretty much stuck around here with water less than 10 meters deep, without using a chainsaw, it seemed like a good time to play around with it.

I've gone back to mostly inhale dives for spearing this summer, so far, but there are times where I will get into shallow water and don't have enough weight to get down. It's nice to know that I can exhale and wait for the fish without worrying what will happen next.

I'm looking forward to trying it out, again, on a camping trip next month where we will be biking in between lakes, with the whole family, and I won't have room for anything but a mask and snorkel. Last summer I dove this way and had to crab onto every rock around to try and hold still enough to take pictures- no spearing allowed in this part of our state. this year I'm imagining dropping down and hanging out for a while without much effort. Since i won't be using a wetsuit it should be ideal conditions for such activities.

One question i have is of the long terms effect of this type of diving on other activities- running and biking. Since it seems that the lungs stiffen up a bit and everyone's inhale performance goes down, how does it effect your lungs ABOVE water when you're pushing yourself up a steep hill or running for a couple of hours?

Jon

 

[azapa]

I am a beginner in many senses, so see this as more of an anecdote rather than any serious testing.

Here is some fishy filming I did in the Bahamas. It was very shallow, 3 or 4M, and I need to exhale to film as I was not using weight. I started the dive about 75% VC and exhaled on the way down, you can hear them clearly, until about 25% I would guess. The remarkable thing is, even though I have done no FRC training, the dives were longer than some full inhale filming I've done recently. The longest of these shallow FRC dives was 1:45 and very easy. They were of course semi static. I think just hanging around Pete and Eric made the whole thing easier...

Picasa Web Albums - Simon - DB Videos
Picasa Web Albums - Simon - DB Videos

 

[fflupo]

cost of dive

 

[laminar]

I wouldn't say that your lungs get stiffer diving FRC - I have no problem doing sprint sets in terms of other exercise.

 

[Jon]

Maybe stiffer is the wrong word- thicker perhaps?

there was something posted in one of these FRC threads about it changing something in your lungs. If you can still run/swim/sprint thats all i want to know.

I was just out spearfishing and started with inhale dives, but decided to switch to FRC since I was light. After 2-3 dives my bottom times were the same- and the dives were much more comfortable.

Any issues with dropping down and doing bottom swims in FRC as opposed to inhales? Or, is FRC more for completely relaxed dives with just a sprint at the end to get you back up? I remember you saying something that it might not work as well if your fighting as fish.

Seems like a good thing to work on

 

[cdavis]

Hi Jon,

There was some discussion of lung adaptation and its effect on other aerobic sports in a previous thread on FRC. The gist was FRC thickens blood vessels lining the alveoli, increasing transit time for 02 and C02. Extreme aerobic training tends to thin the alveoli walls, with the opposite effect. My guess is for most of us the difference isn't a big deal, but thats not exactly an expert opinion.
I am pretty sure that I am experiancing the predicted thickening. For certain, something is changing. Other than less feeling of fluid in my lungs after long negatives, I can't feel any difference.

Connor

 

[Jon]

Thanks Connor,

That's what I remember reading. I'm just wondering how jumping into something like FRCdiving full time would effect other sports that I like to do (bike/run/ski/swim) where you are in aerobic mode all the time.

How's the trip so far? I wish I were there with you guys. Have you gotten our nasty weather yet?

Jon

 

[cdavis]

Trips good, Chris is wonderfully crazy. Weather is interesting up here. Beautiful when we arrived at the hotel, beautiful when we left to go diving, Thirty minutes later mega lighning as we start to get in the water, walk back to the car to be greeted by dime sized hail, LOTS of it. Thirty minutes later beautiful. Interesting. More later, this makes a good tale.

Connor

 

[TampaBrian]

completely unrelated to anything but exhale diving...the paranoid side of me had this crazy thought.....someday, someone, somehow, is going to frc dive, sink, start thier swim up and lose their sense of direction and swim the wrong way......since there is no bouyancy, couldn't someone just get misdirected or confused, and start swimming sideways instead of up and then before ya know it, bam, it's too late to figure it out.....just curious, any thoughts?
It's probably the dumbest thing ever, but hey, thats me.
-Brian

 

[miguel-van]

Brian, I guess we all sink downwards, so probably swimming upwards is natural...
It's probably also the dumbest answers, but hey, thats me.
Miguèl

 

[trux]

Well, if diving in blue water, then you can definitely loose orientation for example when rupturing your ear drum. Though just today I saw two relative novices (to vertical disciplines) ending to swim horizontally after the duck dive, instead of descending along the line. One of them even managed to snap his lanyard (really bad quality one), and swam away from the line, but fortunately he was sufficiently buoyant so popped back up to the surface. That was not caused by an eardrum rupture, but they simply did a classical beginner mistake and attempted to descend looking down, and arcing their back. Messing their duck dive, they did not see the descent line in front of their face, and did not manage to get their orientation right.

Diving along a line, close to a riff or a natural wall, or attached with a line to a float is good safety measure. And of course, having experienced buddies close by is even more important.

 

[cdavis]

Well, this is coming along. I just spent a week diving Lake Michigan (thank you Fondueset), mostly shallow, down to 65 ft, all exhale, usually much more exhale than previously. I was exhaling to about 1/2 lung mostly, sometimes more. Felt fine, getting real comfortable, no problem equalizing, even on the deeper dives. Dive time, after I got used to wearing a 6 mil straight jacket and feeling like a bloated whale, was nearly the same as in Florida and beginning to exceed what I would have been doing on full lung. This was the first time I could do real diving on exhale for an extended number of days and it really helped. Its becoming natural to exhale before diving and adjusting the exhale amount to the depth is getting automatic. This works.

Connor

 

[Tommy_R]

Hello,

I've been reading here for about two years now but never posted anything because almost all of my questions have been asked before and answered therefore aswell.

But now i have a few questions about FRC diving and i couldn't find a satisfying answer.

1.) As mentioned in many posts before you have to train your mouthfill for deeper FRC diving.
But does that mean you only get one mouthfill at the surface ? How does Eric dive to 67 m with that ?

2.) Do you do a different breath up ? What breath up would be best ? Just trying to relax or extensive breath up ?

3.) Packing : If I want myself getting in a frc “mode” you recommend not to pack at all, not even for flexibility training did I get that right ?
Most of the experienced frc gurus here did a lot of packing in their previous freediving career .
So im not sure wether some kind of “base flexibility” should be achieved by some packing exercises before reducing packing to reverse packs only ( reverse packs are ok as a dry exercise for frc ?).


I hope it wasn’t all answered before and I missed it


Tommy

 

[cdavis]

Hi Tommy

They may have been a long time coming, but those are good questions. I hope Laminar, Eric, or? will chime in with some definitive info, but here is my, less than expert, take.

Mouthfill: Depends on how much you exhale. In most cases you can get a mouthfill at depth, just not as deep as full lung. After that, possible max depth depends on flexibility, residual volume and adaptation of the lung tissue to negative pressure, all of which are improved by continued exhale diving.

Breathup: Mine is different and I suspect that it should be. With exhale diving, the effect of excessive reduction in blood c02 should be more negative than with full lung diving. What makes exhale so good (and safe) is early and strong kick-in of the dive reflex, which is delayed by low co2. Therefore, I have reduced my purge breaths to 1 from 4. Zero might be better; I'm working on it. Laminar doesn't purge at all and uses what he calls submaximal breathing. Search for his posts on that.

Packing: This is one for the experts. My sense is that my max lung volume is shrinking as i do exclusively exhale diving. I've started doing a few packing sessions dry, just to stretch, trying to maintain max volume. I suspect that too much of that could hurt exhale dive ability, not sure though.

Reverse packing is tricky, very easy to hurt yourself and not a very good replication of real depth, especially if you go down at a normal speed. Laminar thinks its a bad idea. I'm sure he's right if depth is available on a regular basis. I reverse pack (very carefully and descend very slowly) because I'm stuck in a pool most of the time.

Are you doing any exhale diving? Description?

Connor

Connor

 

[laminar]

Great answers from Connor. I've added some points;

Hi Tommy

Mouthfill: Depends on how much you exhale. In most cases you can get a mouthfill at depth, just not as deep as full lung. After that, possible max depth depends on flexibility, residual volume and adaptation of the lung tissue to negative pressure, all of which are improved by continued exhale diving.

A mouthfill at 15-18m is enough to last for as deep as you can go...it's the quality (size) of the mouthfill that counts.

Breathup: Mine is different and I suspect that it should be. With exhale diving, the effect of excessive reduction in blood c02 should be more negative than with full lung diving. What makes exhale so good (and safe) is early and strong kick-in of the dive reflex, which is delayed by low co2. Therefore, I have reduced my purge breaths to 1 from 4. Zero might be better; I'm working on it. Laminar doesn't purge at all and uses what he calls submaximal breathing. Search for his posts on that.

FRC/exhale calls for a complete rewiring of your diving style. That's why it can feel so hard at the beginning for those coming from a packing dive style.

Packing: This is one for the experts. My sense is that my max lung volume is shrinking as i do exclusively exhale diving. I've started doing a few packing sessions dry, just to stretch, trying to maintain max volume. I suspect that too much of that could hurt exhale dive ability, not sure though.

Again, no studies to cite, but after only a few months and now a few years of diving this way, packing feels wrong, it is uncomfortable, and makes me feel separate from the water. We are not meant to pack air into your lungs.

Reverse packing is tricky, very easy to hurt yourself and not a very good replication of real depth, especially if you go down at a normal speed. Laminar thinks its a bad idea. I'm sure he's right if depth is available on a regular basis. I reverse pack (very carefully and descend very slowly) because I'm stuck in a pool most of the time.

I still believe that reverse packing is always too much. :blackeye A full exhale only slightly less so. I think, Connor, you were quite surprised by the adaptations for chest flexibility/RV by diving in Michigan for a week on FRC without any negatives (that you told me about). A passive exhale is a more specific stimulus for developing the ability to function at depth below RV.

If you are stuck in a pool, I would still recommend a diet of FRC dives in the deep end. You want your body used to FRC, not to full exhale. But yes, after a long time, and given no chance for at least a once a week dive in deeper water, you could try exhaling a little more. But a comfortable lung volume for me is key for long term safety and enjoyment and performance.

 

[efattah]

When I started FRC diving I could do a full size mouthfill at 7m maximum. Any deeper and I couldn't get a big fill. Three years later I could get a full size mouthfill at 18m, which is enough to equalize to 100m-120m, if you get a big fill.

At Vertical Blue 2008, on the 67m dive I did the mouthfill around 17m, and I had so much air left in my mouth at 67m that I swallowed it into my stomach at the turn around. I'm sure I had enough to equalize to 100m+.

 

[Tommy_R]

thank you for your answers so far...

ok i get the point with the mouthfill ... 100m is far beyond my limits

but i couldn't find anything about laminars " submaximal breathing" for the breathup. ( the only post i get as result for a search is this one )
could you give me a link or tell me how to find it ?

and for the last point :
I wasn't talking about packing for dives but using them as a dry exercise to increase flexibility.I don't know what you did in the past connor but i think eric and laminar did a lot of packing so they already had enough flexibility when they stopped packing.
So my question was more refering to dry reverse pack statics and packstretching than pack/reversepack diving.
You also recommend not to do this ?

Tommy

Edit: @ connor
I did it during my course in Thailand but more as an exercise .
And i always had problems finding the "correct" lung fill so i did everything between full exhale and frc from 8 to 25 meters.
but at that time i never thought of it as an actual way to do my rec dives, because i did the dives almost as a static.
(You don't need a wetsuit in Thailand so i started falling almost from the surface and just went up the rope in slowmotion)
But i really liked it and was very surprised i did my longest dive as "exhale"- even if the only 3 BOs i secured as safety where exhale dives.