Inhaling CO2...

[perow1]

When i was attending fireman school there was a lot of smoke diving. To simulate what happens at high CO2 levels we had to inhale pure CO2 to feel the "intoxication". Many of you might be aware of that it is a nice feeling to have elevated CO2 levels in your system and to be close to blackout.

I am very well aware of that it is not very good to black out, but it was done just to illustrate the feeling. My question is purely theoretical and due to risk of blacking out i would not try or recomend what I now am about to discuss.

Since you can elevate your CO2-levels by inhaling this gas in its pure form (or actually a gas mixture with higher CO2 content than air. We were sitting in a room with high CO2 levels, not Breathing it from a tube) Would it not be a way to train CO2 tolerance by taking a breath of air with high CO2 content and do a static atempt or a apnea walk? Would´nt this simulate a close-to-blackout situation? If you are prepared for this by using this method wouldn´t it be easier to handle this situation if it were to happen during a dive? Like i said before I am not attempting to do this or recomending someone to do it it is just a mind game. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts.

 

[Ale Andres]

Well, i think that it's true, but you have a lot of ways to train hypercapnia without spending money in a tube of gas to fill a complete room :hmm . and what could happen if you black out in that room ? better if you are training in a park just walking !!!

 

[efattah]

There is a thread about this.

The best way is to use soda pop or beer. Drink and drink fast, then, when you need to burp, the burp will be 100% CO2.

Exhale first, plug your nose, and get the air out of your mouth.

Burp into your mouth, then push the trapped CO2 in your mouth back into your lungs.

You can burp repeatedly and get lots of CO2 into your lungs.

It feels horrible.

 

[Ale Andres]

Eric, are you being serious ???? I could end completely drunk !!!

 

[efattah]

Don't use beer, use club soda (carbonated water). That way you don't end up drunk.

I'm dead serious, it is a legitimate method. If you try it, once you get the CO2 into your lungs you start to get contractions almost immediately.

 

[Ale Andres]

Uau !! i will try it !! with soda of course thank you Eric !

 

[Merlin]

Don't use beer, use club soda (carbonated water). That way you don't end up drunk.

Come on Eric.... you are taking all the fun out of the exercise

 

[perow1]

Ok! Thank you. My thoughts were what would the actual benefits of this be? Enhanced CO2 tolerance or just mental preparation for close black out situations? Since I work in a small lab I have actually tried to hold my breath by inhaling the smoke coming from dry ice, aka solid CO2 (not a rutine, just a controlled test). A breath hold with this smoke causes contractions after only 15-30 seconds and after you end your breath hold you get really dizzy. I have not managed to do more than 1.20 this way. Usually i can go beyond 6 mins. Of course not as fun as drinking beer but I can assure you that the CO2 levels in your lung will be sky high. As I mentioned before I have only done this with people watching and I dont think it is something to recommend. Might this be the lazy mans way of CO2 tolerance training or just mental preparation?

 

[OceanMan]

I know we can bo because of a too low O2 ratio but does a too high value of CO2 concentration can produce a bo ?

 

[perow1]

I think so, but I do not know why you tend to get dizzy and feel like blacking out only after a minute or less by inhaling CO2. OK if you do not have any oxygen in your lungs, but the blood should be O2 saturated and the muscles aught to have a lot of oxygen too. Why one gets the urge to breathe more quickly isn´t hard to understand but this wuick bo-feeling. Perhaps it is just a feeling and not actually close to black out but i think not. I was thinking about the O2/CO2 binding to the haemoglobin, but even if CO2 bind more readily to the haemoglobin this shold not happen in the lungs or does it?

I cannot seem to straighten this up but you might get close to BO or even BO by doing this, I´m almost certain.

 

[efattah]

CO2 can cause a blackout directly from CO2 narcosis. This would explain the dizzyness, I get it all the time on dives over 80m in CW when the CO2 at the bottom is extreme.

 

[perow1]

So, are you implying that instead of getting rid of the dry ice (packing material to keep laboratory shipments cold) one might save some to pratice dealing with high CO2 levels. Is it only stupid to do dry statics (with your friends) inhaling this or may it be harmful to simulate extreme CO2 narcosis? The danger with ordinary blackout should be prevented if I do it with friends and if I just hold it for 30 seconds when i can do over a minute. After 30 seconds you get really dizzy too.

I do not feel the urge to do this exersize and I do not plan to, since i feel that i have other things to improve and I do not go as deep as 80m. I do not like the shortcut mentality, so I do not think about this to try and go from an avarage freediver to a better. Still I cannot stop thinking about what effect this would have for the average freediver and especially for the advanced..

 

[efattah]

Exposure to extreme CO2 levels can be accomplish in three ways:

1. Inhaling pure CO2 or some mixture with high CO2
2. Inhaling pure oxygen and holding the breath (high O2 blunts the CO2 breathing reflex, allowing supernormal CO2 levels to be reached)
3. Doing 'hangs' at 15-20m underwater, on a regular breath of air (high O2 from pressure allows higher CO2 to be reached)

All of these allow you to reach CO2 levels WAY higher than you could ever reach by doing a breath-hold on land or in the pool. Doing certain types of CO2 tables on land or in the pool, you will never go over about 10.5% CO2.

Exposure to extreme CO2 levels may be beneficial for freediving. In particular, I have found method #3 to be very beneficial for static on land and in the pool. I haven't tried #1 or #2 extensively.

 

[perow1]

Thank you for the reply. I guess that No1 had the potential of causing the highest CO2 levels but i guess that No3 is the most beneficial since it is in an actual diving situation. Maybe training with CO2 inhalation may give you an awsome Co2 tolerance, but I think i prefer actual diving since that do not only train one isolated part. Still for someone with poor access to the sea this might be a good way to get those high CO2 levels when you cannot get them by ordinary breath holds.

 

[monterey jak]

i filled a water bottle with pepsi, squeezed all of the air out, closed the bottle, and shook it up, breathin waht was inside, bad feeling, but fun

 

[commonerg]

After I read Eric's older post about the carbonated drink method, I thought about using dry ice. I may try to test it this weekend. Perhaps I can jumpstart my CO2 tolerance back to where it was a few months ago.

 

[perow1]

Have you tried it yet? I think the feeling you get from a lungful of "dry-ice-gas" is faar from any other feeling. This might be because i do not do dives to 80m like Eric (yet).
Would like to hear what experience you got from trying this.

 

[jome]

How about just shaking a can of coke, capturing the expanding gas in a plastic bag and inhaling?

Or are there other gases as well?

Anyway, I think it's useless. You can get there just by holding your breath long enough, or that's what is your goal anyway...

 

[perow1]

Of course it is not as good as holding your breath that long. Training breathholds leaves you to deal with other things than the CO2-levels. You will miss out on the mental part of holding your breath to the point when CO2 levels is high enough if you breathe the pure gas. I think it would be possible to shake a can of coke, but i don´t know about other gases. THe effect is far from breathing dry ice gas (according to me) this is CO2 in its purest form and very hard to stand. I have not been able to reach the dizzyness i feel by inhaling it by holding my breath the ordinary way. Even in breathholds to the point of LMC i have not experienced this. Again i want to tell you all that i do not train this way, I just want to make the point that it is an Interesting feeling.

Diving and holdingyour breath is still the best training I know of.

 

[jome]

Yeah, would be fun to try sometime...Or maybe "fun" is not the word, let's say "interesting"