mouthfil or chest flexibility?

[Bill]

I think that you're right in being cautious with mouthful Connor. I spent 4 yrs swimming down until I scared myself and gradually made past 60. By then free immersion to 65 was no problem. When I learned mouth fill, it seemed to work great.

One day I went below 60 without packing, got squeezed and have been having problems ever since. Vog is a big part of the problem but every once in a while my mind goes blank and I just forget about equalizing and frenzel my way below 60.

If you follow my path and start playing with the nose clip too, you'll be able to mess up your diving as much as I have mine. Slow down and enjoy the journey. No one ever got out of life alive anyway.

 

[cdavis]

gotta get my hands on one of those nose clips. I suspect even a cheap one would work wonders for me.

Thanks Bill

 

[cdavis]

Kars, just tried your suggestion. Works fine except my frenzel keeps bringing up a little air from my chest and my cheeks stay full, 20-30 frenzels, same result. On thinking about this, something besides my soft pallete is blocking the air in my cheeks, tongue??? I heard of "tongue in cheek", but this is ridiculous.

Connor

 

[Fondueset]

Hey Connor,

I was just thinking about this (before I saw the thread) I only do FRC shallow - adjust buoyancy while photographing lifeforms - and in the pool to play around with neutral glide. But when I get down around 40m my equalization gets kinda wild. I've always done a variation of Frenzel - using the tongue - because of the control (talking since I was 16 here) but it turns out I play around alot - putting extra air in my mask - then taking it out to equalize with - etc. etc. So down around 40m- where things start to get a little critical eq-wise - I found myself on the verge of cracking up at all the weird shit I was doing. I was like a festival of dysfunctional equalization.

Anyway - it occurred to me that my problems would be very largely mitigated with fluid goggles and a nose clip - at least for dedicated line dives.

 

[Kars]

Connor,

Download the excellent Eric Fattah document on how to learn to do the Frenzel Fattah manoeuvre. Liquivision : Freediving : equalizing
http://liquivision.com/docs/Frenzel_Fattah_English_r2006.pdf

To learn to find and operate your soft-plate, lift the head a bit up, open mouth, and exhale alternating between nose and mouth exhale.
The goal is to first find and recognise the muscles involved and than learn to operate them independently. This and the rest you'll find in the most excellent Eric Fattah advanced equalisation document posted on his site. Oh and I'm sure he'll be happy to sell you some nice nose clip and fluid goggles

 

[laminar]

Hi Connor,

Two thoughts to add to the good comments so far:

* Mouthfill allows you to relax the chest much, much more than any sort of classic frenzel (drawing air up from lungs each time). The trade off is that you do have tension in your mouth/jaw/cheeks. And as Bill and Eric caution, it is a whole new experience that needs time to get used to. I am still in favour of the longer bottom time at relatively shallow depths as a way to ultimately realize greater depths on FRC.

* To do a really good mouthfill, tilt your head up (in the direction you are going). If you put your chin to your chest too soon, the compressive forces on your mouth/cheeks tends to drive the air back into your lungs, stomach, or mask uncontrollably and can lead to losing a good mouthfill.

Kars' advice on alternating mouth and nose breathing to isolate the soft palate was what worked for me, as well. I did it by breathing 5 in/out through my mouth, then 5 in/out through the nose, the 3/3, then 1/1, then switching nose/mouth (ie. with soft palate control without moving air). Listen for a clicking sound as you move it open/closed.

I think the mechanism of being able to go deeper with an effective mouthfill, whether you are ready for it or not, is that your body spends more time in a state of negative-ish pressure on the lungs, especially if you're taking a shallow mouthfill, too. As long as the dive itself is gentle, this becomes a great stimulus for adapting to the pressure on the chest wall and its tissues (and perhaps blood pressure?).

An interesting equalizing dive profile to try (Tyler coined the term "Circle Equalizing" a while back in a conversation), is what I generally do when I dive for fun:

0-5m instinctive equalizing (usually hands free)
5m mouthfill
15-20m mouthfill when the first one is feeling challenging to maintain and that's the last one

For a deeper dive:
0-10m on one mouthfill
10-15m another one
20-25m last one

What this type of diving allows is for less tendency to activate diaphragm muscles with frequent frenzel (less in the way of sudden strain on the chest, trachea, lungs).

Diving with mouthfills like this means that you are usually at RV or really close, even at shallow depths. So if you have long duration dives, even if they are recreational, especially with relatively slow descents, (IMHO), you have more time to allow your body to adjust and adapt.

I remember after a span of diving this way (maybe a month?), my ability to do deep frenzel jumped by a good 15m on FRC.

I think the reason FRC works so well with the mouthfill when you have access to at least 10-15m of depth, ideally 20m, is that you spend way more time near or beyond RV, but, getting there is much less stress on your body than negative pressure dives or typical line dives can incur.

Pete

 

[cdavis]

thanks Pete, that makes a lot of sense. You just explained a good reason I would like to do mouthfil. Now to really do it.

Doing lots of sub max (50 ft) exhale dives certainly correlated with a big jump in my max exhale depth.

It is quite difficult(and takes practice) to keep the diaphragm completely still when doing a frenzel. That is often what seems to kick off the "vice." So maybe mouthfil and no vice? Would be nice.

Fondue: "Festival of dysfunctional equalization". Boy, does that sound like me, great quote.

Connor

 

[azapa]

Frenzel without using diaphragm:

Dry, empty your lungs, maybe 1 or 2 reverse packs to make sure you are not cheating, and try to equalize. You will need some air in your cheeks (well, not really as there is no real pressure differential dry just a tongue pump will do). Play around until it works. The upper sides of your nostrils will/should flare out. Pinch your nose of course (alien to you lucky hands free guys!) After, try the same with the mouth open.
Federico Mana interestingly pointed out in a recent course that the open/closed mouth test does not prove you are doing Fenzel, but the empty lungs shure help to differentiate.

 

[cdavis]

Now I got curious. What exactly am I doing that allows me to equalize to 33 m on exhale? Surely that is well below RV. So, I sat down dry and tried to figure it out. Seems like Fondue's quote “dysfunctional equalization” is appropriate, but it works for me. Here's how.

I equalize with a combo of btv and frenzel against the mask with my epiglottis (air connection to the lungs) open all the time. When the tongue does its piston thing, it seals off the lungs and pressurizes everything above the tongue, allowing higher pressure air to flow into the open etubes and forcing a small amount of air into the mask, equing it. When the tongue relaxes, air connection to the lungs is reestablished and air from the lungs redistributes to replace that sent into the mask and ears. A closed soft palette keeps air from the mask and nose from going back the other way. I can repeat this until air pressure in the lungs is so low that pistoning will not raise the pressure enough to flow into the etubes. That is well below RV. As Azapa says, these are all very small eqs and even at 30 meters are close together. As I get deeper, the soft palette seal begins to leak and I either have to eq very fast or grab my nose. Now here an odd part, I've discovered that scrutching up my nostrils seals them to air trying to come back from the mask, so the soft palette leak no longer matters. The last is how I get to 28 m hands free.

Anybody else do anything like this?

Since mouthfil would be a whole lot simpler and more effective, if I could ever figure out how to get air from my cheeks to my etubes, maybe I could make a regular mask into a pipe mask with a tube that connects to my cheeks. If the soft pallette seal would hold, this should work. . . . .. ok, so it a little weird.

Connor

 

[Kars]

When I now do deepdiving, and I get in shape and the tubes are getting more flexible and the technique better, I can also do BTV on slow dives. And when I progress, with a week of deepdiving or two, when I dive slow, I can use mouthfil and Frenzel, flexing the tube muscles and the water pressure of the Sphera mask to equalise hands free al the way to 43m - my 'btv' record.

My suggestion is simple, if you're already able to open your tubes voluntarily : practice having the soft plate neutral - open. Than at say 20m take a nice big mouthful of air, lock the epiglottis and open the soft plate allowing the air from you cheeks to freely flow into your tubes you hold open. When needed you can use additional Frenzel at greater depths.

These explorations we're having here make want to jump strait into some shallow, murky, dark, freezing lake and practice and test myself!

 

[cdavis]

Come on over, Kars. We got a spot just down the road that is "dark and murky", smells kind of like rotten eggs, just right. Sorry, but its deep and we can't do much with the "freezing" part.

Connor

 

[Kars]

It sounds more like a watery version of hell to me with the Dark and the Smell LOL.

In regard to freezing part, it's very energy consuming, but at the same time it induces a great dive response, something I missed very much the first 3 days I was in Egypt for the WC 2007, 27c water...

BTW the Frenzel is the trickiest part to learn, I believe a freediving friend needed a year to learn that.
Secondarily my equalisation too is also all over the place at the beginning of the season, and indeed I need to relearn every season, Frenzel, mouthful, btv, and a lot more other things. For instance last season I wanted to improve a CNF record, but due to a lack of depth practice the equalisation didn't come together and did not perform a good mouthful, and had only a mediocre Frenzel going on, thus I was not relaxed and my ears forced me to turn 3m from the 50m plate. But when I get some time and opportunity I get better in relearning these vital techniques.

My last national record in Sweden was also about improving equalisation amongst other things like hydrodynamics and swimming technique. The 65m dive was great because the equalisation was nice, and thanks to that the whole dive was a confidence inspiring experience, showing there was more in the tank, and what it is to have such a long freefall, where you actually got a confident amount of air to equalise with, while the rope is racing past your face. I cannot wait to try for deeper, though the number I have in my mind is pretty daunting.