Hyperventilation

Hyperventilating increases the O2 store quite dramatically, contrary to popular belief.

It is true that your arterial O2 saturation may only increase from 97% to 98%, but your venous O2 saturation will increase from about 60% to 85% or more. Further, instead of having 5% CO2 in your lungs, you will have 2.5%, meaning you now have 17.5% O2 in your lungs, instead of 15%, which is an increase of lung oxygen content of 16.7%.

However, the drawback is that you black out sooner anyway, due to the fact that CO2 is needed to retain consciousness.

Peter Lindholm calculated the actual amount that the O2 store increases from hyperventilation in his PhD thesis, I have it sitting around somewhere. The increase was quite dramatic.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

I think the most important way to increase the venous and the lung O2 is to RELAX and breath a little little more than needed for some minutes.

In this way you maximize O2 stores without true hyperventilation because the decreased O2 output. (We can call this a controlled overventilation)

My belief is that the most important in the breathup is to optimize the CO2 level wich I think should be slightly lower than normal (maybe 30-32mmHg) due to the increased O2 stores.

In this way I think one can get balance of the gases and maximize the O2 stores.

One thing I know from my own experience: If the CO2 goes so low that I get tingeling sensations in the arms and legs (pCO2<25mmHg I think) I blackout earlier so I don't wan't to go too low on CO2.

But a good question is how do we define hyperventilation?
If you think about your breathing you're probably going to breath more than normal or less than normal. If you see it this way, maybe a little "hyperventilation" is beneficial.

It would be interesting to see research on this

Ivan.

Each time i read your posts on pro - hyperventilation i shake my head some and think to myself.. well he will learn sooner or later.

There is however something that just occurred to me.
Perhaps, if your system is naturally very acid to begin with, a heavy amount of hyperventilation might not make you too alkaline and thats why you survive.

Do you have plenty fillings in your teeth etc ?

Skin.

hi

Posted by Ivan:

As Sebastien Murat says in his interview any breathing that is more forced than normal breathing is hyperventilation

Click to expand...

I think this could be a good definition since changes in your blood alcalinity hapens very quicky (you only need a few fast deep breaths to get high in the sky ).

If this is it i hyperventilate everytime I dive (haven't BO in water yet).

And yes if you do hyperventilate it makes a diference (at least for me).

Zipy

hi

He he Skin no I dont have too many fillings but Im getting root canal treatment done. Yeah I hyperventilate all the time and so far I have had only two sambas and that was pushing it lots, so yeah its pretty safe for me and if I dont do it I would be the worlds worst diver it helps that much.

cheers

not safe.

No Ivan. Its way not safe for you. You just have not pushed it far enough yet for your brain to go 'lights off' yet.
The sambas you had you were lucky to have. Chances are that you will still bypass samba phase and blackout instantly with only minor feelings of apnea discomfort sooner or later. Been there done that, designed my T shirt. ( I dont wish this on you though at all. )

I was doing a static in competition and i hyper'ed for at least 10 minutes. ( it was supposed to be 3 minutes @ a full breath every three seconds. ) My top time was delayed by 7 minutes so i just kept on going.
At 3.00 minutes into my static i felt so 'champion' I 'knew' i was going to do +5 minutes without even one contraction. ( usually i start developing my first discomfort and contraction at 3.00 - 3.15 clockwork )
The last thing i remember is that at 3.30 i had one sudden contraction that measured 9 on the richter scale. I must have signalled on auto at 3.45 but at 4.05 they turned me over and put oxygen on me.
It felt great i must say. Its like hitting the reset button and your mind is like a clear slate afterwards but without them i would have never lifted my head and never known about it.

So .. do me a favour and YOU never dive alone and never do wet statics alone. Whilst this is a general rule, it applies in its most extreme form to YOU. When it happens tell everyone so that they can learn from your experience.


Skin.

Yes, please be careful ivan....I've lost enough friends in the last year, thanks. Take care,
Erik Y.

hi

Thanks guys for caring for my safety. In the ocean spearfishing I dont hyperventilate because there is enough risk already with fighting fish and getting spears out of coral etc, plus with freediving you cant just take a breath when you want.

With statics though its different I dont hyperventilate very much in Wet statics but in dry im invincible cos you can samba blackout as much as you want so I hyperventilate extensively. So guys im not that dangerous In situations where safety really counts Diving/Wet statics I take it pretty easy. I suppose you guys push hard in dry statics as well Im pretty sure you do Erik eh

cheers

I don't know if anyone has asked this but anyway... If hyperventilating increases to o2 level in our body and Co2 gives us that urge to breathe then why is it that after hypering for a dry static I still get the strong urge to breathe at between around 3 to 4.5 minutes, am I not hypering enough for it to shorten my max hold or does the Co2 increase enough during a dry static to cancel out the high o2 which causes alkalininity(?) and would therefore allow o2 to be released into the blood as normal?

I hope you can gather what I mean from that.:duh