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Good Static breath hold/Bad dynamic breath hold

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.

Mohamed Said

New Member
Oct 26, 2017
8
2
3
34
Hello,

I can do 4:25 static breath hold, however I can barely do a 1:00 dynamic one, I dive to 20 meters and hold the rope hoping to do a long hang, but at 50 seconds or so I get strong contractions and I can't relax anymore so I head back up.

What type of training should I be doing to overcome this problem? Is pushing myself to do a longer hang the only way to go or there are other drills?

Thanks :)
 
Hey Mohammed, its me again..

There are 2 things I think are important to recognize when looking at your situation. One is that it is very difficult to compare breathhold across multiple disciplines. The second is that you have to look at the type of training you do.

-For the first part it is important to realize that you cannot directly compare disciplines. Good static does not mean you will have good dynamic, and good depth abilities won't necessarily translate into good static. This is because of the different variables and physiological responses that affect each breath hold. During a breath hold these variables include;
  • Bradycardia (slowing Heart Rate)
  • Blood shift
  • CO2 tolerance
  • low O2 tolerance
  • Metabolic O2 consumption/ CO2 production
  • Muscular O2 consumption/ CO2 production
  • Movement Technique
  • Relaxation
  • diaphragm/Psoas/iliopsoas/thoracic muscle tension
  • ...
These various things all come into play during a breath hold but some are more important for certain disciplines than others. For example Blood shift and technique is much more important for depth than it is for static. Bradycardia and CO2 tolerance is more important for dynamic than it is for static and depth. Diaphragm/... tension has a greater effect on depth diving than it does on the pool disciplines.

Since each variable can have more or less affect on each discipline and each person can "be" better or worse with each variable its possible that you can be great at static for example, and horrible at dynamic.

- Training, on a whole, is very simple. If you want to get good at something, you have to do it a lot. no matter how bad you might be at Dynamic, if you practice enough, you will eventually get good at it. It is important to be honest with yourself about what you are good at and what you are bad at and it is also important to work on your weaknesses. If you are good at static and bad in depth doing more static won't help you, doing depth will. if your CO2 tolerance during movement is bad and you give up early during active dives, doing static O2 tables will not help you. I don't know your training but you should be able to be honest with your self about your weaknesses and be disciplined enough to work on them. Hopefully that advice will help you with current and future problems that you encounter in freediving, or really anything you are doing in life.

In your particular case: For DYN, if you can do over 4:00 STA you should be able to do closer to 2:00 in DYN. Thats not a perfect calculation but aim for at least 1:30 DYN times. CO2 drills like 16x25m as fast as you can will help improve your CO2 tolerance during movement and eventually build up to longer and longer DYNs.
For depth my opinion on contractions and discomfort varies from a lot of divers but I think that contractions during deep dives are usually caused by muscular tension in the core rather than CO2. I don't believe that CO2 tables will help you become more comfortable in depth, with hangs in particular. Personally I get contractions at 1:45 in static, but never in depths deeper than 15m. one way to work on this is to continue to do slow, long dives with bottom hangs and focus all of your attention to -> if and where you are holding tension in and around the breathing muscles, and with practice things will improve. The way I personally improved this was by doing dry holds on various levels of exhale from FRC (passive exhale) all the way down to reverse packing exhale statics. This helps you experience the lung volumes you will have during deep dives and get more used to relaxing the right muscles. When I first started i would get contractions at 15-20 seconds on full exhale, but now that I can relax the right muscles they come at around 1:45-2:00, beyond the time my inhale contractions start.
 
Hey Mohammed, its me again..

There are 2 things I think are important to recognize when looking at your situation. One is that it is very difficult to compare breathhold across multiple disciplines. The second is that you have to look at the type of training you do.

-For the first part it is important to realize that you cannot directly compare disciplines. Good static does not mean you will have good dynamic, and good depth abilities won't necessarily translate into good static. This is because of the different variables and physiological responses that affect each breath hold. During a breath hold these variables include;
  • Bradycardia (slowing Heart Rate)
  • Blood shift
  • CO2 tolerance
  • low O2 tolerance
  • Metabolic O2 consumption/ CO2 production
  • Muscular O2 consumption/ CO2 production
  • Movement Technique
  • Relaxation
  • diaphragm/Psoas/iliopsoas/thoracic muscle tension
  • ...
These various things all come into play during a breath hold but some are more important for certain disciplines than others. For example Blood shift and technique is much more important for depth than it is for static. Bradycardia and CO2 tolerance is more important for dynamic than it is for static and depth. Diaphragm/... tension has a greater effect on depth diving than it does on the pool disciplines.

Since each variable can have more or less affect on each discipline and each person can "be" better or worse with each variable its possible that you can be great at static for example, and horrible at dynamic.

- Training, on a whole, is very simple. If you want to get good at something, you have to do it a lot. no matter how bad you might be at Dynamic, if you practice enough, you will eventually get good at it. It is important to be honest with yourself about what you are good at and what you are bad at and it is also important to work on your weaknesses. If you are good at static and bad in depth doing more static won't help you, doing depth will. if your CO2 tolerance during movement is bad and you give up early during active dives, doing static O2 tables will not help you. I don't know your training but you should be able to be honest with your self about your weaknesses and be disciplined enough to work on them. Hopefully that advice will help you with current and future problems that you encounter in freediving, or really anything you are doing in life.

In your particular case: For DYN, if you can do over 4:00 STA you should be able to do closer to 2:00 in DYN. Thats not a perfect calculation but aim for at least 1:30 DYN times. CO2 drills like 16x25m as fast as you can will help improve your CO2 tolerance during movement and eventually build up to longer and longer DYNs.
For depth my opinion on contractions and discomfort varies from a lot of divers but I think that contractions during deep dives are usually caused by muscular tension in the core rather than CO2. I don't believe that CO2 tables will help you become more comfortable in depth, with hangs in particular. Personally I get contractions at 1:45 in static, but never in depths deeper than 15m. one way to work on this is to continue to do slow, long dives with bottom hangs and focus all of your attention to -> if and where you are holding tension in and around the breathing muscles, and with practice things will improve. The way I personally improved this was by doing dry holds on various levels of exhale from FRC (passive exhale) all the way down to reverse packing exhale statics. This helps you experience the lung volumes you will have during deep dives and get more used to relaxing the right muscles. When I first started i would get contractions at 15-20 seconds on full exhale, but now that I can relax the right muscles they come at around 1:45-2:00, beyond the time my inhale contractions start.

Thanks Nathan,

Your answers are always very helpful, I'm truly grateful :)
 
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