Exhale Diving for the "average" diver

[Kars]

30-35 / 50 should be a nice middle to upper middle cruising speed wearing a monofin.

In Berlin I did a national record and pb 16x50m swimming 30-31s / 50m.
But for Dynamic max distance I usually swim slower, 43s - 45s /50m. I should swim faster I think tough, more like 39-40s.

Kars

 

[laminar]

I do 35 seconds or so with bifins for 16 x 50m.

Aiming for 26-28 seconds for my max dynamic FRC with monofin - it's an experiment. With turns it works out to be about 30 seconds per 50m.

I like going faster! If I could maintain my top 18-19 second pace per 50m for 150m+, I would. It would a 1'12" dynamic for 200m! All fine except for the sprinting part.... :duh

 

[cdavis]

Gotta get a monofin.

connor

 

[cdavis]

Thoughts on FRC for spearfishing, more energetic diving:

I just got back from a week in the Bahamas(see freediving stories), diving almost entirely exhale at about 65 % of total lung volume. This was the first time I could try exhale diving in a wide range of conditions and while doing different things. When I could relax, ie, little current and slow down enough to allow adequate relaxation, exhale worked perfectly. Very long dives with the slow descent seeming to spook the fish much less. I was getting very close to fish that would have been much harder to approach the way I used to dive. Most of our diving was 10-16 meters, well above my limits, so equalization and general comfort with pressure were perfect. Dive times were slightly shorter than in fresh water (lower effort diving) but that seemed reasonable. Still almost 50% greater than full lung, no complaints. However, when I got into situations where there was need to fight a current, dive with short surface intervals to recover cripples, or generally dive in less relaxed conditions, exhale diving just did not seem so comfortable. I started going back to full lung at times. It was much more comfortable in those circumstances, maybe just from a psychological perspective, but it felt better. Full lung diving gave me shorter dive times, even considering the increased effort and shorter surface interval, but it felt better, safer, and I wasn't about to argue with my body.

In general, for Bahama type diving, I think I'm going to develop a style of switching back and forth between exhale and full lung, from dive to dive, depending on the conditions, mostly exhale, but full lung when needed. First, I'll have to relearn how to take a full breath.

Connor

 

[efattah]

Connor,

Funny you mention it, but I also have started a 'trio' style of diving. FRC, inhale, or packing, depending on the dive to be performed and the conditions. Like you, in rough, poor conditions with current & unrelaxed breath ups, I find FRC diving ineffective. In flat, relaxed conditions, I still prefer FRC dives. Certainly my recovery time between FRC dives is always much shorter than between packing dives (3-4 min, vs. 6-7 min).

 

[cdavis]

Thanks for the confirmation, Eric. I wasn't certain, thought maybe it was just in my head.

Recovery times are tricky for me. When doing longish, deeper dives, recovery on exhale is definitely faster than full lung. But, when going up and down real fast in energetic conditions, 10-13 meters, I feel recovered quicker on full lung, or at least, I feel ready to do a (shorter) dive quicker on full lung. My breathing rate and depth of inhale during breathup go way up in energetic conditions. These are just not consistant with the relaxation needed for exhale.

Connor

 

[fflupo]

for me the frc works also pretty good in rough conditions even with a bad breath up will say forced breathing ( if i don t get sea sick ;-), but on the other hand i have never been packing so i don t know the difference, ..

the sprints on frc are an important training tool for me and the burning leg is a indicator for increasing performance due training and this is doing pool and depth,
my average speed in the 25m pool for 50m is 24s.
max sprint times are around 1.45 usually i do a static before i start the sprints

freefall sucks

 

[efattah]

my average speed in the 25m pool for 50m is 24s.
max sprint times are around 1.45

So you are doing 105 seconds of FRC sprinting:
105s/24s x 50m = 218.75m FRC dynamic ?

 

[fflupo]

yes, but not with that 24s speed

with the sprinting i mean no stroke and glide only stroke for the burning legs
my max on frc is 150m

the fastest is only on a 50m distance

24s is not the average, on a long distance -mea culpa-

and it should be gravity sucks

i had a tough skydiving week behind me and kind of rushed the message

eric, are you also training the sprints?
with and without static and what are your experiences with the survival shock?

 

[cdavis]

More progress and something interesting:

Did a 3:46 static/dynamic dive in the pool today, about 15 seconds past my previous pb. This dive was about an hour after consuming a medium size cup of coffee, a lot of caffeine for me, who does not drink the rocket fuel Azapa is used to. Further, I wasn't completely done at the end of the dive, had probably 10 seconds left. This is the second time I have substantially exceeded a pb soon after feeding my caffeine addiction. Also seems to work in open water.

Caffeine has obvious negative effects on heart rate and metabolic level, so why the pbs, twice? Today felt like my DR was very good. Is this just chance? Does my mild addiction require caffeine for the best diving performance? Could caffeine be affecting DR enough to overshadow the increased heart rate? some other effect? or maybe all freedivers should drink wimpy american coffee?? I've seen a couple of comments that suggested that caffeine was good for DR, but blew them off at the time. Anybody know anything more about this?

Connor

 

[ktreloar]

cdavis,

Thats interesting because i know of a few good spearos that will have a couple of good coffees before they dive and they still do well.. might have to give it a shot... what i have been noticing though is that if i do training first thing in the morning that my frc times are nearly a 1min longer then if i do them later on in the afternoon. Suspecting that food digestion might be the cause as well as daily stress adding to it. i took your advice from a few posts (think a few months) ago regarding adding weight to so i can take down more air with me when i train in the pool and its working a treat. more regular longer dives as well as more comfortable.

Just a quick question how many dives would you do in training session in the pool?

Cheers

Ktreloar

 

[Mullins]

Were you previously limited by BO/Samba, or discomfort? Caffeine will make a dive easier (or so the theory goes) while reducing 'true' max distance a bit.

 

[Phil C]

At the risk of derailing this thread about Caffeine and freediving...

I have been working exhale DNF into my routine for about nine months now and enjoy the challenge 90-95% exhale (without neg packs) - just enough to get me pitch and o/a neutral in an unweighted tri suit.

I get a strong DR (lactic legs) but so far I have not had any contractions (normally get them at around 30m on an inhale DNF. My exhale PB DNF is now up to around 85m.

I feel I could push out further but am a little worried by the lack of signals.

My question is - has anyone got experience with B/O on exhale. My buddy will be there, and will know I'm diving exhale, in theory there should be a laryngospasm, but what has been the experience?

 

[Narsil]

My buddy will be there, and will know I'm diving exhale, in theory there should be a laryngospasm, but what has been the experience?

Don't fret Phil, we'll just add a drill and a straw to the safety kit...

Guy

 

[cdavis]

Mullins: Never B0ed and haven't had anything resembling a samba since I was 17 (much too long ago). I have miserable co2 tolerance and that forces me to the surface before I run low of o2. My partner said my lips were just changing color, not quite blue, but not pink. That disappeared as soon as I started breathing.

The idea that caffeine might make the dive easier but not safer is new to me. It would not surprise; seems like most things in freediving that are too easy will bite you somehow. Where did you get that info? Is there some detail to go with it? Any idea what the mechanism might be?

Phil: For different reasons I've also been doing full forced exhale static/dynamic dives in the shallow end of the pool (about 6 ft), although I haven't pushed them out as far as you, 30 yards and 1:50 is my max so far. I'm also leery of B0 doing this, but so far have had no problems. Your comment about laryngospasm is good food for scary thoughts. B0 underwater while doing a forced exhale and have your larnyx not shut tight and you'd be just about dead from water in the lungs even if your buddy was 3 feet away.

Anybody know if the laryngospasm ever fails to work when B0 first occurs?

Connor

 

[azapa]

Connor, those are long dives. How much is static and how much dynamic? I kinda guess you were not on exhale? For some (probably obvious) reason static>dynamic always seems nice, but the other way around sucks (given same times/distances).

BTW. I gave up coffee after the last Vertical Blue, and can't say i'm not happy with the results.

 

[cdavis]

The 3:46 was my standard dive, 60% inhale. Static in that one was about 2:25. The full exhale dives are forced exhale but not long enough to get absolutely everything, say 98% as a guess. Can't wait for the swamp to dry out so we can get to the Mud Puddle. That's where I find out what all this means in real diving.

What is changing about the standard dives is the time to first urge to breathe. It used to be 1:20, now its often 2:20, same breathup. This seems like a slow but steady change brought on by steady, but not very intense, frc training. I attribute it to faster DR, at least, I hope that's what it is. Another indicater, it used to take me 30 minutes to really get into doing good dives. Now its more like 20 minutes.

Just an aside. I'd always been a little ahead of my training partner (Nalyd) until he went out and took Martin's course. When he came back, he blew by me like it was nothin. Very impressive improvement . Guess I'll have to take another course.

Connor

 

[cdavis]

Update:

Dive times in real diving are increasing. Diving about 60% inhale, I'm doing swim around type dives in the 1:45-1:56 range in 40-50 ft. Comfortable dives. If I stretch it just a little, 2 minutes plus isn't unusual. Depth keeps increasing, I'm down to 94 ft, 2 minute dive. That was a little tight in the chest, but 90 feels just fine.

The above seems to be a slow progression resulting from a couple of years of fairly regular pool training in exhale. My training is pretty laid back, nothing like as intense as ketrelor's, and much slower progression. But, its steady.

I've lost my training partner and so don't push things in the pool. A 4 minute dive will have to wait until I can find a spotter. Still making progress anyway in real diving, the stuff that counts.

Just did another bahama trip and am learning to vary my breathup with conditions. More energetic conditions mean more agressive breathup and slightly larger lung inflation. Its getting automatic, but still needs more practice. I'm able to do longer and longer dives even with more energetic conditions. Looking good.

Connor

 

[cdavis]

Interesting result from yesterday. Went diving for the first time since mid June. Have done very little training and still increased my max exhale depth to 100 ft. Like the above, it was tight, but 94 felt just fine.

As little practice as I've been doing this seems really odd, hope it continues.

Something else odd. I switched over to full lung, expecting to be able to go quite deep (for me). Did not happen. The whole dive felt wrong and I bailed at 115 ft. with a tightening chest. Given I was carrying at least 2 liters extra air, a tight chest doesn't seem reasonable.

Connor

 

[Kars]

Interesting. At what depth did you do your 'mouth full'?