Losing Mouthfill, weak Glottis?

[SofaKingDeep]

Hi all,

I have a question regarding the mouthfill technique.

Sometimes(in the water) after taking my moutfill I can hear this weird sound that sounds a little bit like someone being gagged who tries to talk.
Hope that's more or less clear.

So to me it seems to be clear that my glottis is slightly open and air from the overpressure in the mouth is vanishing down the throat :-(

Sometimes I can stop it on the descend but sometimes it goes on until I'm out of air.

I can reproduce it on land by taking a really, really big mouthfill.
In this case it doesn't really matter if I do this almost full, frc or empty lungs.

In any other Glottis training exercise this never happened to me(e.g. Andrea Zucchari's exercises, Federico mana's book, Eric fattah's paper etc)

So my question is: Does this happen to anyone else? Is my Glottis just too weak and I need to keep on training?
Or is there any other reason that my Glottis seems to be susceptible to overpressure from the mouth? Any way I can train this explicitly(other than just keep taking full MFs on dry land which seems to not help).


Please help

 

[Apneaddict]

Sounds like a textbook case of leaky-glottis. A terrible affliction that can be quite embarrassing at times.

I'm thinking about an elective glottis-enlargement procedure.

That or simple "filler" injections to plump it up.

Maybe it also shrinks when exposed to cold / water? In all seriousness, I've lost my mouth-fill before too and for me the best exercise to train it was simply repetition of Mouthfill diving.

I would dive on Mouthfill only from the surface and then hang at max depth achieved.

There may be some dry exercises to train it, but other than the Fattah ones, I'm not aware if them.

These little muscles and fine motor control take some conditioning.

One possible fix could be to adjust your jaw or chin position and see if this makes a difference.

 

[SofaKingDeep]

Thanks.

Well, I knew most of that already but it seems at the very end you might be getting somewhere: Moving My Jaw/chin seems to really make a difference although I'm losing some mouthfill volume by doing that.

Also it seems a lot like it's a matter of daily form and being fully rested. When I'm tired(or in the morning) it seems I have a lot more trouble keeping the glottis fully sealed.
But that's proabbly obvious to all of you already

 

[timm]

Hey SofaKingDeep,

I have this too! The first time was this year, I also had a small breakthrough in MF (I think), which is sort of related I reckon.

So I got to the point where I can take a mouthfill dry and get the pressure from my cheeks to equlaise my ears with constant pressure. For me this was a revelation, maybe this is MF 101, but this was very elusive for me for years, and feels more the pure MF where constant pressure keeps the ears open.

I tried this in 3.8m pool and got exactly what you are talking about, after it happening in the pool, I can get the same dry anytime I want. I think the difference is though its not related to the size of the MF but rather the pressure I am trying to exert with my cheeks. This forces the glottis open and makes "door squeaking sound" of my glottis.

Maybe this is a good excercise, as its applying pressure to the glottis, and working it out?

(I tried this again for the first time in months whilst writing this reply, and have now spent the last 15 minutes have to clear mucus out, and blow my nose 6 - 7 times, so its doing something to my sinus!)

I have only tried this a couple of times at depth before the season ended, and had the same experiece on some shallow dives, where it did equalise with my tubes open but my glottis screamed with the pressure and eventually closed my tubes.

Have you done this at depth much?
Can you open your tubes this way and not had to pop, pop, pop you ears?

I am too thinking about glottis excercies for next year, but have been having a bit of time off before start after xmas. Hhave you found any?

Personally I think this is great, if its just a matter of strengthening our glottis, and then we can use just cheek pressure to equalise, it would be awesome, and I cant wait to try it out proper deep next year.

Anyone else out there any experience of this?

Tim

 

[SofaKingDeep]

Hey Tim,

thanks for sharing your experiences.
I'm pretty sure this is a very common problem when you've not yet fully mastered your MF. For me the main question here is why is it happening: Am I doing sth wrong or is my glottis just to weak or is this even just a concentration thing.

I have this done quite a lot at depth this year, but I only figured out the proper mouthfill this year.
I keep my tubes open by this with constant pressure for some time, but there is a point where I have to switch to "pop, pop, pop" as you nicely phrased it ; first with the cheeks and as the air runs out with normal frenzel.


I'm doing some regular Glottis exercises, yes but there are so many that I don't know which I like yet

What I currently do is the "Glottis Music" from Eric Fattahs document and also some tables on ~90% empty longs with arms extended over my head whith small breathups(a little bit like a Static CO2 table).
This is for training keeping the glottis closed against contractions and higher CO2 levels.
The last part is probably more for not swalowling your MF completely, and not for the "leaky" glottis issue.

 

[MGF]

im new to DB forums and joined just because of this post. this is EXACTLY what happens to me as well. started this summer to to mouthfills and really struggling with this as i cant seem to get past 40m without the risk of negative packing and squeezing.

i've never actually lost my mouthfill, but it gradually disappears when Im equalising some of the air goes to my eustachian tubes and some of the air goes back into my lungs.

any more experience on the case? i know the thread is old but im desperate.

 

[Immersed]

Take a look at this video from Andrea Zuccari :
This fucking glottis

 

[MGF]

thanks immersed. I will try this kind of training and see hos it goes.

 

[xristos]

I had air escape my epiglotis with a sharp short high pitch sound. I was maybe too relaxed and forgot about it. Result was, when I realized what had happened I had maybe 1/3 of the mouthfill left.

 

[xristos]

Still facing same problem at Rv dives air leaks i can "hear" it leaking I don't pressure too much with the cheeks. Also, dry I practice it with success even on full exhale or reverse pack, I have to really try with cheek pressure or fingers pushing the cheeks to make glottis leak (when dry). If anyone has any tips I would appreciate. I do practice with baloon and just noseclip and will keep on doing so. I just take a fill and let it go slowly from nose. Also fill baloon and open close the nose with hands and making sure air not going back to the lungs ( and it doesnt).