no-warm up breath holds

[quasimoto]

hey guys

i jsut started to do the no warm up method of training a few days ago in hopes of improving my times, but i have a few questions:
when you guys say no warm up, do you mean no breathe up as well? I have been trying it with no breathe up, just normal breathing, then a deep breath and exhale, then full inhale and hold, and my times have been a bit shorter.
Also, how many times should i practice this? I was thinking at least once a day, possible twice a day, to the max effort, and was wondering if i could overtrain like this.
finally, what exactly does this training do that improves your breath hold? The only think i could really think of was a higher CO2 tolerance, and if this is true, what about doing co2 tables as well as this?

sorry its a lot of questions, but i want to be able to maximise the effect of my training, if im going to make the effort.

thanks in advance for the replies,
rory west

 

[efattah]

I think the main gains of this method are:
- Increased size of the spleen
- Learning to tolerate the breathing reflex to reach the max on the 1st attempt; this allows the spleen to contract later in the breath-hold, giving you O2 after vasoconstriction and hypometabolism have already set in


Technically you can do a significant breathe-up and still get benefit from this method.

 

[jome]

Hi,
1. It's a bit of a mixed bag. Some people mean just "no warmup" some imply also "no breathup". Personally, I mean "no agressive hyperventilation", but I do definately breath up. For me that is about 5 minutes of relaxed, shallow diaphargm breathing.

2. I like the method of doing only one max no-warmup per day. If you want more training stimulus, do it on more days, but remember to have breaks as well. The reason I like the idea of only 1 hold per day is mainly psychological. Doing more than one gives you the luxury of bailing out if you don't feel like it's a "good static". But if you just do one, you must give it all you got every time. This is very helpful for building mental tolerance.

3. No-one knows really sure but some points that have been raised are:
-Too much warmups may take you to "deep tissue hypoxia", meaning that if you don't give your body engouh time to recover from the last (severly hypoxic) warmup, your slow tissues may be already hypoxic when you start the apnea. This is a theory that I believe efattah suggested some time ago, but I don't know if anyone has any definite idea how big that effect would be.
-Gives stronger training stimulus to body and mind. But I don't think anyone has a clearly proven idea of what exactly that might mean. Theories about improving spleen contraction and spleen size have been discussed, I remain somewhat sceptical...Hmm, would be very interesting to know the size of Tom's spleen...
-Builds especially mental tolerance to the breathing reflex. Without the comfort of warmups (and no agressive hyperventilation), you simply must push harder to get the same result. Also doing only one max attempt forces you to try your max and does not allow the luxyry of bailing out in training and labeling that one as just another warmup.
-Removes "warmup stress" from competition. I always have this...I get all nervous about having completed my delicate warmup process correctly. It would be so much simpler if you could go into a competition and not worry about that. Just go to the lane and do your thing...
-Especially regarding the "no breathup" method, higher CO2 helps oxygen release from the blood, ie, your theoretical limit before samba is higher. It seems that it also has on effect of oxygen consumption. A lot of people have observed, that the earlier your breathing reflex starts, the earlier oxygen consumption drops, ie "the dive reflex kicks in". But it makes breath holds much more uncomfortable, and that's why most choose warmup and hyperventilation. Personally I believe there is such a thing as too much co2. It's a delicate balance that you must find out with experimentig...

Just some ideas for those who don't feel like reading the multi-hundred replies thread of "no-warmup statics". That thread kind of died and I don't know how many are still seriously doing it. I've settled on a kind of a compromise at the moment which means basically: very short and very simple warmup and no agressive hyperventilation. From time to time I do a week or so of pure "no-warmup, no-breathup" training, just to get my head in shape...

 

[kingohyes]

Im still doing it, and the progress is very slow. I have found that it is very easy to overtrain with this method, since you often get mentally bored out. So I have started to not time my breathhold, but to time how long I can withstand contractions. This gives me a new point of view, and I can easily see progress.

I train this method only about twice a week, in the beginning I trained it everyday, its just a matter of realizing when your body and mind gets tired. I believe this is the best method, I just have to get over the "ugly" feeling of contractions, and they are not as ugly anymore.

When I asked sebastien murat about this method, he replied:

It's hard, the hardest ...
BUT its also the best method.

When I first started statics in 1997 I reached 8'02 in just that manner.

 

[naiad]

-Too much warmups may take you to "deep tissue hypoxia", meaning that if you don't give your body engouh time to recover from the last (severly hypoxic) warmup, your slow tissues may be already hypoxic when you start the apnea. This is a theory that I believe efattah suggested some time ago, but I don't know if anyone has any definite idea how big that effect would be.

Unlike most other freedivers I know, I find that my easiest statics are done shortly after another long static. My easiest ever 5:00 dry static was done as the last one of a table, with a rest of only 1:30 after the previous 5:00 static. My dry static PB of 5:30 was done a few minutes after a 5:00 warmup. I think part of the reason that I have never been able to do much more than 4:00 in the pool is that it is not practical to have such short rest periods, because I am taking turns with my buddy and also getting distracted by other things, so the rest periods are about 10 minutes.

It takes a lot of training for me to be able to do statics with such short rests in between, but it has given me very good results.

Lucia

 

[efattah]

Lucia,

Doing long statics with short breaks results in 'easy' statics, but not the best statics. If you were using an oximeter you would find that an easy 5'30" might end with a much lower oxygen level than a very hard 5'30". An easy breath-hold implies your spleen was fully contracted before the breath-hold started, which will never result in the longest time.

The only exception is if you have a very poor tolerance to CO2. Then, you would need 'ease' just to make it to the end, and without that ease, you would burn way too much O2 from gigantic, early contractions...

 

[roy_nexus_6]

I wonder, has someone been able to suppress the diaphragm contractions ?
Not postopone them, but totally suppress the reflex ? Perhaps some advanced meditators / Yoga / Qi-Gong practitioners ?

 

[efattah]

There is a way to block the contractions. To do it you simply exhale against your pinched nose in such a gentle way that it would take 60 or more seconds to exhale the air, (if your nose wasn't pinched). This reduces your heart rate to 20 beats per minute or less, stops the contractions, and causes a feeling of great suffocation.

However, to do such a gentle 'fake' exhale, you cannot have bursting lungs (i.e. no max packing).

The longest I ever 'blocked' contractions was 77 seconds using this method.

 

[Merlin]

I wonder, has someone been able to suppress the diaphragm contractions ?
Not postopone them, but totally suppress the reflex ? Perhaps some advanced meditators / Yoga / Qi-Gong practitioners ?

roy,

I have never gotten a single contraction, not doing statics (PB: 4:30), and not doing dynamics (PB: 75m). I do not understand why, my brother gets them and we have similar performances. So if you do find out let me know what up :hmm

 

[Bill]

"Doing long statics with short breaks results in 'easy' statics, but not the best statics."

No arguement with that statement, but it is amazing how little difference there is. There also seems to be no warm up procedure that is better than just staying relaxed until your start time, if you practice that method.
Aloha
Bill

 

[quasimoto]

thanks for all of the input guys

eric-
is supressing the contractions bad for you, and is there a way to build up a resistance to the suffocation feeling? I have tried the same thing and after about 45 seconds i feel like im dying! Also, i sort of naturally do this for a little bit (maybe 20-30 seconds) before my contractions come, and as wondering if it would be better to just let them go when they want to go

 

[roy_nexus_6]

There is a way to block the contractions. To do it you simply exhale against your pinched nose in such a gentle way that it would take 60 or more seconds to exhale the air, (if your nose wasn't pinched). This reduces your heart rate to 20 beats per minute or less, stops the contractions, and causes a feeling of great suffocation.

However, to do such a gentle 'fake' exhale, you cannot have bursting lungs (i.e. no max packing).

The longest I ever 'blocked' contractions was 77 seconds using this method.

Eric,
Thanks for the tip !
Do you find this contraction supression technique of yours aids in longer static times ? My logic tells me that "supressing" the contractions should stop the oxygen waste on unproductive diaphragm muscle contractions. In turn that should prolong the static times.

 

[Bill]

Irian
As you see, it's different for each diver. I was doing 5 before my first and I think Deron was over 6 on his first. Now they start between 3 and 4.
Aloha
Bill

 

[crusty]

Guys
Whats the best form of training for a Spearo.
Im doing pool training 3 times per week, 2 km of kicking with soft short fins and a kick board and then 10-15 breath hold swims.
50 - 65 meters under with as short as suface time as possable before the next one.
And then another 500 of kick ( want to get my legs fit )
I do 1 or 2 static holds per sesion just to see if im getting better.
Any Sugestions to help me train better.

Thanks Crusty.

 

[jome]

I tired the "exhale against your nose" thing around a year ago, but couldn't get it to work. I got the "feel like crap" part right, but no noticable drop in HR. Maybe I should try it again. It's propably a technique not learned with a couple of trys.

I remember Eric then warning about it being very dangerous, so if you're going for it, be cautious...

 

[efattah]

The contraction blocking effect will lower your heart rate dramatically and conserve oxygen, but this effect really only kicks in when you REALLY feel suffocated. What is happening is that this method excites the vagus nerve so tremendously that the nerve channel itself starts to become 'fried' with electricity unless you have trained it to accept the higher voltage. When the vagus nerve is excited, the heart rate is slowed, the metabolism is slowed, etc...

When Swami Rama stopped his heart for 17 seconds at Menninger Institute, he explained that he would concentrate on the vagus nerve to excite it so much that it slowed his heart to a complete stop. Clearly his vagus nerve could handle a much higher voltage than ours can.

When I was training the contraction blocking method, I was able to increase the length of my statics. The method I would use was as follows:
- Inhale, full pack, normal static
- As the first contraction nears, I would exhale two mouthfuls of air (fill mouth, spit out air, fill mouth, spit out air)
- This would reduce my lung volume enough to exhale very gently against the nose clip
- I would block the contractions for about 60 seconds, then allow one contraction
- Then I would block again for about 30 seconds, then allow two contractions
- Then I would try to do more blocking, perhaps 10-15 seconds on each set, then a contraction

This method could increase a 6'35-6'40 static to 7'00-7'05. However it was very draining psychologically and after I stopped training this method I couldn't do it at all anymore to any level of benefit.

 

[naiad]

Everyone else wants to get rid of contractions, and I can't get them back! I only occasionally get single strong contractions, but I can get to the end of a very difficult CO2 table without having any. My recent static PBs, both wet and dry, were done without contractions. This was not because I gave up early - there was a definite 'struggle phase', and in fact the 5:30 started to become difficult at about 3:00.

Eric, thanks for the advice, I will try some different things. Maybe I'll find something even better!

Lucia

 

[OceanMan]

I don't understand the role of the spleen in static apnea.

How can someone 'concentrate on the vagus nerve' ??? I don't even know where it is !!

Please can you explain ?

 

[roy_nexus_6]

Eric, thanks for taking the time to clarify the technique and the mechanics of how it works.