Hello,
I am a total beginner. I am past forty now. I don’t know if at this age I still could, say, double my breath hold time. When I am saying I am a newbie, I mean that I never practiced breath-holding in a systematic, not to say, scientific way. I have always liked diving in swimming pools as well as in natural waters, but I never thought one could increase his breath-hold much beyond the limits that, I believed, were determined mostly by inherited bodily factors, such as lung capacity. At the moment I can hold my breath in a motionless position for somewhat longer than 2 minutes. I reckon it is around the average. My purpose in training breath-holding would be to be able to swim longer distances under water, and also to be able to safely dive deeper. The goals I have set myself are these:
1) 50 meters on a single breath in an Olympic swimming pool without fins
2) 10 meters deep without fins
For the moment my limit is between 25-30 meters in distance. As to the depth, it is trickier, because it is not only my breath-hold time that sets a limit, but I am lacking the necessary technique as yet. But all these things can be learned from tutorials and the reason I am posting this thread is not to ask your help in mastering the basics of free-diving. What bothers me, and where I need your advice is the following: I am in a somewhat special situation with regard to training free-diving, meaning that only during one month out of the twelve I am in the possibility to actually dive. There is not even a swimming pool deserving the name in a circle of 30 miles from where I live. I would like to find out the best way to keep in form with the least possible effort during eleven months, to be able to free-dive successfully during the single month of my summer holidays. Let’s assume, I reach, as a result of hard work, a resting breath hold time of 3:30 minutes and am consequently capable of swimming the length of an Olympic swimming pool on a single breath. How stable is this achievement? If I stop all breath-holding exercise for eleven months, will my breath-hold time slowly creep back to the initial 2:10, so I have to start the whole thing anew? Would, say, holding my breath for 3:30 once every day keep me in form until next summer? I suppose, some veteran free-divers among you have some experience in these questions. Your answers will be greatly appreciated.
I am a total beginner. I am past forty now. I don’t know if at this age I still could, say, double my breath hold time. When I am saying I am a newbie, I mean that I never practiced breath-holding in a systematic, not to say, scientific way. I have always liked diving in swimming pools as well as in natural waters, but I never thought one could increase his breath-hold much beyond the limits that, I believed, were determined mostly by inherited bodily factors, such as lung capacity. At the moment I can hold my breath in a motionless position for somewhat longer than 2 minutes. I reckon it is around the average. My purpose in training breath-holding would be to be able to swim longer distances under water, and also to be able to safely dive deeper. The goals I have set myself are these:
1) 50 meters on a single breath in an Olympic swimming pool without fins
2) 10 meters deep without fins
For the moment my limit is between 25-30 meters in distance. As to the depth, it is trickier, because it is not only my breath-hold time that sets a limit, but I am lacking the necessary technique as yet. But all these things can be learned from tutorials and the reason I am posting this thread is not to ask your help in mastering the basics of free-diving. What bothers me, and where I need your advice is the following: I am in a somewhat special situation with regard to training free-diving, meaning that only during one month out of the twelve I am in the possibility to actually dive. There is not even a swimming pool deserving the name in a circle of 30 miles from where I live. I would like to find out the best way to keep in form with the least possible effort during eleven months, to be able to free-dive successfully during the single month of my summer holidays. Let’s assume, I reach, as a result of hard work, a resting breath hold time of 3:30 minutes and am consequently capable of swimming the length of an Olympic swimming pool on a single breath. How stable is this achievement? If I stop all breath-holding exercise for eleven months, will my breath-hold time slowly creep back to the initial 2:10, so I have to start the whole thing anew? Would, say, holding my breath for 3:30 once every day keep me in form until next summer? I suppose, some veteran free-divers among you have some experience in these questions. Your answers will be greatly appreciated.
