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Having some trouble with my dive response...

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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Sep 1, 2013
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Since I started diving I heard about the prominent twitches and such that take place while underwater like the mammalian dive reflex, But I seem to have a hard time triggering mine. I don't feel these twitches that I know im supposed to feel. Maybe its happening on such a level i can't feel it? any ways to fix this? i know cold water helps but besides that I know nothing on the matter. any tips tricks or descriptions of this feeling would be awesome!

thanks in advance!
 
Use a spotter... But use no neck weight and exhale your air and do a 25m DNF.

It fires mine up pretty damn reliably.

At about 18-20m I get a massive 'twinge' and then I'm set. :D
 
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I don't always 'feel' much when dive reflex is kicking in. And sometimes I do.... Also, dive response typically won't kick in until you are into the struggle phase. With training the mental aspect of struggle phase changes and comes later although physically you may be going into dive mode. One pretty simple way to test is to use cold water facial immersion--just a big bowl of water with some ice in it so the temp is around 55F. You need to measure your HR, and you need to know what your resting HR is. Take a breath and put your face in the water. Within 30 seconds your HR will likely drop to below resting.
 
Some people get contractions early ( I get my first ones around 1 min 30 sec) and some get them later. Some people's contractions start pretty intense and some start light and gradually build up in intensity and frequency. An exhale hold will definitely get things happening much quicker. I take it your breathup technique is fine and you aren't hyperventilating and increasing your O2 and interfering with your dive response. You don't say how long your statics, swims, dives are at present. What's your max and are you finishing a hold/dive feeling really comfortable, like it was really easy?
 
Some people do not have contractions, instead the feel tiredness, tension, boredom. like said above dive reaction consists of loweering hr, vascular constriction. Freedivers cultivate the dive reflex so it starts early fast and strong. Its a matter of carefull training.
learning to flex and deeply relax is the key part of a good dive reaction.

welcome to db!
 
Contractions depend also on your breath-up, judging from what I've seen to myself. Don't know if it's same for all. Hyperventilating delays them right?
 
Hyperventilating does delay contractions, it also delays the urge to breath, sometimes beyond O2 blackout levels. This is how many freediving accidents happen, people hyperventilate, dive, and their urge to breath comes very late or not, and they fail to come up for Oxygen in time because they corrupted their most important warning system.

Another disadvantage is that with low CO2 levels the body reacts by increasing the metabolism by burning O2 FASTER to restore the CO2 level, REDUCING MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE AND SAFETY MARGIN.


In all, today, hyperventilation is considered a detrimental to performance and RISK increasing technique.​


Todays freediving training aims to get comfortable with high levels of CO2, and reducing metabolism as the way to extend the freediving experience.
 
Someone give me a link because I can't find an answer . I did tables and a best attempt :
Yesterday did hardly 3:50 (contractions at ~2:15)
Today did easier 4:34 (contractions at ~3:00).
I must have been hyperventilating right ? How can I find out ?
Note I have done in one year ~100 tables, never blacked-out.

Thanks
 
Breath-holds feel and are different from day to day. There are many influences, rest, time, food, water, preparation, relaxation, mental state. The large amount of factors make it challenging to learn and be consistent.

Hyperventilation is breathing more air then you naturally need.

Beginners often do this by increasing the respiration volume, deeper breaths.
To find out, you need to explore your CO2 range, testing it safely on land.

Knowing educated and top freedivers will avoid hyperventilation, we can do a dry land test to learn how it feels. We're going to contrast and compare no breath-up preparation with hyperventilation. To prepare for this test you want to do first 3 warm-up holds, so you'll get comfortable and reach your baseline performance. I suggest doing on land (dry) active exhale holds, because 't gets results faster.
Start with 3 active exhale breath-holds to 50%, 70 and 85% of your maximum. - active exhale is breathing out everything without reverse packing. 85% is a feeling, where it feels like you could have done 15% more to meet your maximum. I use the percentages because time varies with the days, and trying to meet a specific time may cause training being too hard, and creating a negative association with long breath-holds.

So after the first 3 holds,( on land off cause! ) with enough rest in between, you're used again to higher CO2 levels and contractions.
Now let's start with hyperventilation, and see and record what happens. Do say 2 minutes of deep breathing, but try to avoid tiring yourself and getting too dizzy. Then active exhale and hold your breath. Remember to do everything else as normal. Do another after some recovery time and again 2 minutes of hyperventilation. By now you know how this feels, during preparation, in the beginning, middle and then end of the breath-hold, also take note of the recovery time and feelings. Notice the effects on your physiology and mind.
After the 3 warm-up and the two hyperventilation holds, take 5-15 minutes rest, like a short sleep, and when you wake up notice your body's relaxation, do a no-breath-up hold: active exhale, hold. - it will be mentally challenging because you believe you're not ready. Just take it slow and relax, notice and record the experience, like with the hyperventilation holds, but avoiding analysing, just record the sensations. After your recovery take notes, and compare hyperventilation holds with the no-breath-up hold.
Now the difference between both preparations and effects should be much more clear. When you do your next pool session (with buddy!) you'll have a much better sense of if and how much you've hyperventilated because you've got the experience of the two extremes.

Again only experiment with hyperventilation on soft land, and being rested, hydrated and in good health.
If you feel you're getting (too) light headed, lay down stable on the side (if you're not already laid down!) and hold your breath and wait for the balance in your blood to restore.

Because of our stressful lives, and bad breathing technique examples around us we mimic, many people have developed the habit of breathing with the chest only too much. Freediving most often has a very therapeutic effect of (re)learning the correct and most efficient diaphragm breathing in combination with feeling comfortable with elevated CO2 levels. Higher CO2 levels help in O2 transfer to the body's cells, improving oxygen availability in cells helps with many bodily functions, including healing and cognition.

Remember CO2 is good for us.*

*and for plants too, they grow faster.


ps, taking note of time during holds is distracting and difficult. What you can do is record a video, where you signal to the camera: breath-hold number and start, when urge to breath starts, when 1st contraction starts (if it's not visible), and possible other signs like bloodshift, heart rate, sensations of local heat, cold etc. This helps you to not think about time, but rather focus on relaxing and recording sensations, by relaying them to the camera with a small hand signal.
If you decide to put the video on Youtube, please add clear warnings and a link to Deeperblue.com so interested people learn how to explore and enjoy freediving safely. Thanks

/edit: expanding and clearing up.
 
Last edited:
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Contractions depend also on your breath-up, judging from what I've seen to myself. Don't know if it's same for all. Hyperventilating delays them right?
hyperventilating is so dangerous and easy to do without knowing if you dont use a proper breath up. make sure your diving safe for your benefit, and ours nobody likes to hear of fatality's in the sport and using hyperventilating is a sure fire way to become on of them.
listen to Kars (he knows whar gwarn) and have a good one :)
 
To The Free Spero: Go buy or borrow a heart rate monitor and a stop watch.
Without even getting in the water just spend some time doing some dry apnea with it on. Timing your breatholds you will soon see the point, various parts of your dive reflex kick in.( you should see drops in heart rate ) And the time it takes to kick in. Record this in a diary. Once you have established some base lines , Go and do some training ie tables etc both dynamic and static. (with a buddy) Do this for a few weeks then remeasure the same as you did at the start to be consistent and compare your results.
When freedive training you are looking to improve the speed and strength your dive reflex kicks in.
As you read comments above there is a lot to freediving. I would strongly recomend you find your local freediving instructor and do there course you should learn everything properly in a easy to understand way.
 
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