• Welcome to the DeeperBlue.com Forums, the largest online community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing. To gain full access to the DeeperBlue.com Forums you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:

    • Join over 47,943+ fellow diving enthusiasts from around the world on this forum
    • Participate in and browse from over 531,990+ posts.
    • Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
    • Post your own photos or view from 7,455+ user submitted images.
    • All this and much more...

    You can gain access to all this absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!

negatives and contractions

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 90 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
Pete,
I get a rapid dive response with the negatives, so I have kept them up. As I'm training more for endurance (spearfishing or recreational diving) than competition, I'm assuming that more pushes to the brink (while staying safely dry) will improve my endurance for a 3-4 hr dive in Hawaii (or up here in summer).

Nah, if you mean that you want to be able to dive well over several hours in warm water, I would do cardio on a regular basis and then throw in the odd anaerobic set once or twice a week. By "more pushes to the brink" I assume you mean dry statics? I personally wouldn't use that as a preparation for recreational/spearo diving unless your goal is to become more comfortable with apnea in general, if you are still exploring that. But not to "get better." And even so, I personally find dry statics to put my mind very far away from how I feel in the water, so I rarely do them.

And what is your main goal for diving? A certain average depth on each dive, a time, or just a sense of confidence in the typical conditions, times and depths you find yourself in while diving?

Are you diving FRC primarily?

How do you feel your progress is going with what you are currently doing?

If you provide me with more information about your diving summer and winter and what a week of training looks like, I can better comment on it. Also, what improvements would be for you.

In addition to the dry stuff, I do modified frc one night a week. 25 yd on the bottom neutrally buoyant by partially emptying my lungs, and 25 back on the surface on my back recovering.

This doesn't seem intense enough to be an effective training exercise (unless relaxation is your goal). I'm also worried about the short recovery while actively swimming. Do too many of those in a row and there's the potential of getting depleted, especially on an exhale or partial exhale. If it's well within your comfort zone, then it doesn't sound like it would trigger any training effect except for relaxation, as I mentioned.

Again, not sure what your goals are.

Pete
 
Last edited:
I'll start a new thread in a bit and I'll focus my training ideas on the question of improving overall as a diver - ie. achieving true comfort and an added subjective margin of safety on normal dives, FRC and regular inhale (not packing).

Is that what you would like to read?

Pete
 
AFAIK low O2 levels never induce diaphragmatic contractions.

it seems to me that you are mixing two quite different things together:

1 - negatives - this refers to forceful exhale(s) before breath holding, leaving the lungs close to residual volume (depending upon how much air you actually exhale). this can create negative pressure in the lungs as the pressure in the lungs can be below ambient. negatives are quite often used during warm up to help strengthen blood shift and can assist with depth adaptation.

2 - exhale diving - this refers to doing a passive exhale prior to breath holding, leaving the lungs at ambient pressure or functional reserve capacity during the hold. this style of diving is also called frc, seal or e (empty) diving. this is the style of diving pioneered by sebastien murat, among others.

Image:LungVolume.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


contractions due to carbon dioxide build up are nearly impossible with empty lungs during negatives. any contractions experienced are likely due to low oxygen levels.

as far as buoyancy, when diving the frc style the idea is to be able to sink in a passive fashion from the surface. the descent essentially becomes a static, which conserves oxygen until ascent (when the dive response is much stronger). comparing only the last part of the ascent it may seem more difficult to get to the surface using the frc style than full lungs due to the negative buoyancy; however, sebastien murat's findings consistently demonstrated that a diver returns to the surface with HIGHER partial pressure of oxygen in the lungs when using the frc style than with full lungs.

i may be mistaken, but i do not think there is more of a risk of water inhalation during exhale/frc diving than f (full lungs) diving; however, a diver's lungs will hit residual volume at a shallower depth given the lower starting lung volume. the pressure on the lungs at various depths will also (initially) feel greater using the frc style versus full lungs, and time for adaption is necessary to avoid lung squeeze.

finally, negatives should be performed with extreme caution as water inhalation after black out may be possible (due to the negative pressure---vacuum effect). in addition, it is easy to replicate the pressure of very deep dives and thus cause lung injury, if not properly adapted. i have read accounts of numerous experienced divers who have injured themselves while doing negatives.

more experience frc divers feel free to jump in here :) :)

cheers,
sean
vancouver, canada
 
Pete,
To answer your questions:
I first used a mask in the ocean 1953 as a terrified 5 year old, and never looked back. I speared my first fish 2 years later. I have been diving ever since. Scuba in 1961, trained by my father, and used for work (marine biology). I learned I was a freediver in 1989 when I found a copy of "Last of the Blue Water Hunters" by Carlos Eyles.

In 2003 I had a PFI class, where I was the only student without a single national record. I've also been helped by Annabel and Co. on the ropes at Hounaunau. I'm not competitive, and have never been past 39 m CW, 5:35 apnea, or 50 m dynamic

I train by riding to work during the summer and on rollers during the winter, plus occasional windsprints, underwater laps, and general play time in the pool.

My goal as a freeediver is to continue to do it. I want to be able to be comfortable have reasonable breathholds when I get into the water, rather than fritter away a vacation getting back to where I want to be: relaxed drop in 30 to 70 ft of water, and stay a while to visit with or kill fish, depending on the day. ; o
Paul Kotik's "Diving before the Rope" pretty well describes my approach.

My interest in this discussion is figuring out the breathing part of the equation. I've read some of your stuff, as well as Sebastian Murat and Eric Fattah, and I've spent time with world record holders (Martin and Annabel), as well as a several national record holders, as well as trainers and lots of general freedivers. There seems to be a very wide range in training techniques. My goal in this is to get help sifting through the mass of info to get at the basics that underlie breathing (or not breathing). If anything, at present, my guess is that slowing the brain down is at the core of the whole thing, surrounded by appropriate breathing technique, and training on the outside of the ball. It's kind of like trying to reach John Lilly's "high indifference", but with the ability to get out of it before drowning (make sense?).
For those who never heard of him, Lilly was a dolphin researcher that turned to deprevation tanks and chemicals to get inside himself as the first step to communicating with the dolphins. He described the high indifference as the the ultimate guy watching the tv set watching the tv set watching...watching reality back in his head. My only brush with it was during my SWB. I was aware, but had no attachment to anything, including breathing or continuing with my life.

I hope this makes some sort of sense.
Howard
 
The basics that underlie breathing? It doesn't sound like this is the answer you're looking for, but I think it simply comes down to 1. how much C02 you take with you and 2. how much you fill your lungs i.e. full exhale/frc/inhale/packing. How you get better is by exposing your body to the various stresses of tough, working breathholds and allowing it to adapt. I don't think there is any way around this, so in the absence of a training partner maybe you could do more intense dry training like apnea walks? Never tried them myself but it is a reeeasonably freedive-specific thing to do.

To be honest I don't think that your mental state is going to matter much, as long as you are fairly relaxed. So although chasing some sort of supreme zoned-outness or detachment might feel kinda cool and you would probably enjoy the dive more, it won't affect performance. Enjoyment is a great thing to aim for, but don't necessarily expect it to make you any better.

Like I said, probably not quite what you're looking for :). But another perspective anyway.

p.s. I am thinking about recreational diving here, though it may not sound like it. If you give yourself sufficient performance headroom through training, you will find you are much freer to enjoy yourself and play around with mental states when spearfishing or sightseeing.
 
Last edited:
It's kind of like trying to reach John Lilly's "high indifference", but with the ability to get out of it before drowning (make sense?).
For those who never heard of him, Lilly was a dolphin researcher that turned to deprevation tanks and chemicals to get inside himself as the first step to communicating with the dolphins. He described the high indifference as the the ultimate guy watching the tv set watching the tv set watching...watching reality back in his head. My only brush with it was during my SWB. I was aware, but had no attachment to anything, including breathing or continuing with my life.
Sounds scary, or maybe I am not understanding correctly?
 
Naiad,
Which sounds scary, the swb or John Lilly's idea? Actually, both were. The swb was for obvious reasons (close call), and the brush with the high indifference was because that part of my brain really didn't care one way or the other whether I lived or died. It was just observing (a very unnerving experience).

Howard
 
I am working on a post but somehow lost a big chunk of it so I'll have to finish it later. It's been illuminating to write it. I think there will be a lot to discuss when I finish it.

Pete
 
Naiad,
Which sounds scary, the swb or John Lilly's idea? Actually, both were. The swb was for obvious reasons (close call), and the brush with the high indifference was because that part of my brain really didn't care one way or the other whether I lived or died. It was just observing (a very unnerving experience).

Howard
I meant both. It sounds like experiencing an altered state caused by hypoxia. Maybe like an 'out of body experience'?
 
Naiad,
I can't compare it to anything else I've experienced.
Living through the SWB (described briefly in a comment on amphibious's BO thread) was like dodging the bullet.
"Geez, I lived through that one".
The awareness of simply being under those conditions, was much more unsettling. It happened about 1995, and I've thought about it from time to time, but have seldom mentioned it to anyone, so I don't know whether anyone else has noticed it. Without having read Lilly's account of it in "Center of the Cyclone" I doubt if I would have ever thought about it again. All I can really say is that it was one of those rare moments where life simply was!
Anyone else ever experience it?
Howard
 
DeeperBlue.com - The Worlds Largest Community Dedicated To Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing

ABOUT US

ISSN 1469-865X | Copyright © 1996 - 2026 DeeperBlue Global Media Limited.

DeeperBlue.com is an independent digital media platform dedicated to Scuba Diving, Freediving, Ocean Advocacy, and Dive Travel.

Since 1996, we’ve been informing, educating, and inspiring the global diving community through trusted news, features, and shared community experience.

ADVERT