Freediving physiology conference

Our club organizes a small conference on freediving physiology. Or perhaps a lecture would be more appropriate since there will be probably only a single speaker: Dr. Fabrice Joulia, lecturer of the UFR STAPS of the University of Toulon.

Mr. Joulia works in the domain of freediving since 1996 (working with Mifsud, and Frolla). He is the author and co-author of many studies and books on this topic, including the "Physiologie et Médecine de la plongée" et "L Apnée - De La Théorie À La Pratique", which are reference books for most freedving instructors in France.

The conference will take place on January 21 2011, from 18:30 to 21:00, in the à amphithéâtre Marie Curie, campus de la Doua, Lyon.

The entry fee is 5€.

In case you are in the area and understand French, you are welcome to attend

More details on our club website at Cyrnéa - L'apnée à Lyon

We had the conference here in Lyon yesterday, and it was a real bomb. Dr. Fabrice Julia did not disappoint me - he spoke 3 hours long, at the lecture was packed with information. I'd tell that all the latest facts in physiology we can learn here on DB, and by watching new scientific studies, were almost all concentrated into his 3hr speech. And he managed to present it in a very comprehensible way - the vast majority of the public were normal freedivers without any specific deeper knowledge in physiology.

I was initially a bit sceptical, before the conference, expecting just some basic information, more or less uninteresting for someone who follows the development in this field closer, but the lecture simply blew away any scepticism instantly. Additionally, Dr. Julia is a very nice and modest person. And the royalty fee was very very affordable.

I can highly recommend attending a lecture of Dr. Julia anytime. He does not do them very frequently, but if you are interested, PM me and I'll send you his email address (will have to get his permission first though), so that you can contact him. He works regularly in the USA (Chicago), and Australia (I believe it is in Sydney), so you might have a chance to meet him even there - though when travelling abroad, his schedule is usually much more tight than in France, so it may not be as easy as here in France to schedule a lecture.

I video recorded the speech (with the permission of Dr. Julia), but am afraid the camera failed, and that I'll have only a quite short part of it (I did not verify yet).

And we then continued with him in a restaurant till 4AM, and could address some of the topics in depth. We also spoke a lot about Stephane Mifsud, because he is one of his primary study subjects since 1996. It was Dr. Julia who built the training program of Stephan, and who helped him to improve significantly.

We also spoke about the eventual cheating, that Mifsud is suspected of by some. Fabrice (Dr. Julia) was not personally present at the record, so cannot comment on the claims that hidden leaking of O2 was used, but since he followed Stephan since many years and very regularly, and measured the evolution of his performances in the laboratory very frequently, he did not think Stephan would need such cheating. And just for info, Fabrice is not having any financial interest in Stephan's record - he does not have any financial profit from it, gets not paid by Stephane, and does not get any grants based on the results of the freedivers participating in his studies. Stephane is just an excellent study subject for him, but other than the results of the laboratory measurments, Fabrice has no specific interest in his records.

There are 15 minutes of the almost 3 hours long lecture here, for those understanding French (though Dr. Joulia can give lectures in English too):




And some of the papers that Dr. Joulia published (author or co-author):

1. Cardiac alterations induced by a fish-catching diving competition.
2. Apnea: a new training method in sport?
3. Circulatory effects of apnoea in elite breath-hold divers.
4. Static apnea effect on heart rate and its variability in elite breath-hold divers.
5. Physiological responses to repeated apneas in underwater hockey players and controls.
6. Heart rate responses during a breath-holding competition in well-trained divers.
7. Apnea-induced changes in time estimation and its relation to bradycardia.
8. Effects of ventilation on body sway during human standing.
9. Breath-hold training of humans reduces oxidative stress and blood acidosis after static and dynamic apnea.
10. Reduced oxidative stress and blood lactic acidosis in trained breath-hold human divers.
11. [Consequences of apnea on hematosis, or "the apnea for the pneumologist].
12. An anxiety, personality and altitude symptomatology study during a 31-day period of hypoxia in a hypobaric chamber (experiment 'Everest-Comex 1997').
13. Personality factors, stoicism and motivation in subjects under hypoxic stress in extreme environments.
14. Cognitive performance during a simulated climb of mount everest: implications for brain function and central adaptive processes under chronic hypoxic stress
15. Electrocardiogram changes during positive pressure breathing in rabbits.
16. [Cardiovascular function in man during experimental dives at 26 ATA (helium-nitrogen-oxygen mixture)].
17. T wave changes in humans and dogs during experimental dives.
18. Psycho-sensorimotor performance in divers exposed to six and seven atmospheres absolute of compressed air.

Hi Ted,

Yes, the access to most of the documents is restricted. Many are free too, but newer papers are usually available to people with a subscription, and to universities, and scientists. If you have a friend on a university, he can perhaps help you to get some of the papers in full text.

If you find enough of people who'd like to attend such lecture, it can be organized. Let me know if you think you'd like to, and I can set you in connection with Dr. Joulia, so that you can negotiate the conditions. You can also try speaking to Dr. Fitz-Clarke, who is (I believe) located in California, so it may be possibly easier to organize. I am not sure though, whether he does such lectures.

Dr. Joulia is also one of few scientists studying closer spearfishers (and a spearo himself too), and time to time he does also lectures more specific to spearfishers.

Regarding the splenic contractions, there are some studies (especially Erika Shagatay did several of them in the last time). There are 13 of these documents listed here: spleen @ APNEA.cz (there are some in full text among them)