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increasing lungvolume with packing

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Equalizing

To clarify the frenzel-fattah method: Please don't worry if You don't master ALL the exercises as prescribed in the famous fattah.doc. Personally I haven't managed yet to use my tongue as a piston to pump air against the roof of my mouth. Enlightening for me was the fact that every equalization without the help of the lungs will be useful to apply this technique , whether it may still be called Frenzel or not. What is so brilliant about this document: There we find more than most of us would ever need in order to go deeper. Even partial application (as in my case) helped tremendeously. The transparency of this document makes it a real gem in the freediving world and should serve as an example of how to be a good steward of know-how, not leaving the rest of the world in the dark.

The most important thing is to close the epiglottis and push air through it into Your cheeks (as if You would clear Your throat). This should be done 15-20 Meters BEFORE failure depth. For us mortals that means @15-20m depth, afterwards it's too late. With increasing water pressure the cheeks collaps again, however I am still able to get little portions of air out of my lungs - in my case that would be between 20-28mt, where there is still enough air left to "refill" them. In a good, concentrated dive I should have my cheeks refilled for the last time @28mt. From there I have no more lung support and "live off" the air in my cheeks. By this time I have already been equalizing with my cheeks for (at least) the last 10mt. I have to, otherwise I "loose" the air that is trapped in my mouth. It would escape through my open epiglotis right back into my lungs. (For "conventional" dives down to 35mt I don't need that technique, in fact, here I can even equalize freehand). It takes a little practice to fill the cheeks, use them to equalize the next second and then to refill them again. The greatest difficulty is keeping the epiglottis closed while pumping new air into the cheeks and while pressurizing the air further into the eustachian tubes. After 28mt (IMHC = In my humble case) it get's easier, since no longer I am pumping air into my cheeks, but I am only squeezing air with my cheeks into my tubes. By this time I am already in a free-fall and can totally focus on my "cheek-vasalva". Please don't forget to prevent the air from being sucked back into Your lungs - the epiglottis must be shut from -15/20mt until You reach the bottom! It takes practice in the pool AND also in deep water to keep that from happening.
To answer the question about pressure on the lungs: I can only say this: the shape of the day and psychological uneasyness have a lot to do with that. Consider also: if we run out of air for equalization, we are psychologically convinced that we run out of air period. (eg: no more air to survive). To immerlustig: If pressure gets uncomfortable, work on Your depth in half-meter steps, You will have plenty of time and opportunity. I wish You great fun in Dahab!
 
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thanx gerald, very precise

about the use of the tongue as a piston : this is actually how i equalise ever since i remember so that s obviously quite ok then.

about the ^cheek equalising^ : very nice description, thanx. i started practising that on empty lung dives and your description fits nicely. also the backflow of air into the lungs when the throat isn t properly closed.
there s currently one other thing i ve discovered about getting air into the lungs once you are after that ^failure depth^, cause in my case the way i fill my cheeks before doesn t quite work. i think i ll spend some more time on this and will let you know once i ve figured that out.

about the onset of the bloodshift : i ve just read in a book by pellizarri that he "feels the bloodshift at 60 meters". so i ll probably don t need to worry about that so far. ha!

cheers in the meantime

roland
 
Your welcome!

It's my desire to share my diving experience on the net for the benefit of all. In an age of relativism without absolutes, things like preciseness and definition are harder to find than cool spring-water in the desert. But when I find definitions that help me, I am excited to pass them on. My description is as precise as I can get it, almost too precise for a general application. I would call it the "frenzel-fattah-gerald" method. I want my fellow db-members to grasp the main idea - which is to shut off the connection between the lung and the mouth with the help of the epiglottis and - based on that - customize their own technique. Equalizing is one of the most important subjects in freediving because we feel comfortable at depth as long as we still "have air" for our ears. I would like to continue this subject on another thread ("Problems equalizing") because I think it would be placed there more fitly: http://forums.deeperblue.net/showthread.php?threadid=26483. To those readers that look after methods for "increasing long-volume with packing" I would like to apologize for the deviation from the subject.

Please consider also: Negative (empty lung dives) and "pack-stretching" are excellent warm-up methods just to prepare the lungs for a deep dive! This is from WALRUS, a very experienced db-member: "I definitely recommend Pack stretching, even if you don't use packing on the actual dive. After you have 'stretched', your maximum inhale without packing will be slightly more, or you can hold the normal amount with much less strain..."

Please note that another thread: "Problems equalizing" started with someone complaining, that packing (alone) didn't help him to go deeper (quote below). I am not against packing, I only advice to practice it under supervision, because it could cause pre-dive blackouts in the water or secondary injuries due to collapsing (from a standing position). A german idiom transliterated into english goes like this: "trying to hit a sparrow with a canon-ball". Mastering the mouth-fill technique (and using a small diving mask of course) will shift the "packing-zone" (the depth where packing becomes indispensable) to a much deeper level.

Here is the initial post of the thread: "problems equalizing"

 
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