Sensations during breath holding

[Brent5738]

Forgive me in advance: I am an ignorant non-freediver with an interest in dynamic apnea. I have a poor excuse of a PB breath hold - 1:35 - and an even sorrier excuse for a PB DNF - 22m. I am being told that it is all mental, but I honestly feel I MUST breath after 1:00 - 1:35. To help clear things up for myself, I have a list of sensations that i am experiencing. Please tell me what feelings are normal (aka, I am not pushing too hard) when holding my breath. Also, please tell me some unusual sensations (aka, pushing too hard, warning signs, etc.) that I should be careful of.

1. After 1:00, I get the feeling that my lungs are contracting, but I can only force myself through 3 contractions max before gasping for air.

2. A sort of tingling/splotchy feeling in my face right at the end of a long hold.

3. Inability to relax/anxiety in the last 10 seconds of a hold.

I know it is elementary, but I do desire to be able to one day swim a DNF of 75m. Please help me get better, and thanks in advance!

- Brent

 

[blueface]

Take a freediving course if you can. It seems like you have alot of anxiety about holding your breath. Maybe you should try some meditation to relax you better. A doctors advice may help rule out any pre existing medical condition you might have. Don't worry because I am quite sure somebody with more experience will chime in soon. This is the kind of topic that will get a response.

 

[trux]

The anxiety is normal, and frankly told it is what can help you a great deal. The panic feeling you experience, the tingling, the contractions, are the signs of a survival reflex, and they help to reduce oxygen consumption. Once you realize the anxiety is your friend, not enemy, and manage to keep it under control, and to continue despite it, you will make a huge progress. It is enough to realize that it won't kill you, and you can continue much much longer. Never alone or without a qualified surveillance, though!

 

[Rik]

Dear Brent,

It is difficult to interpret all the sensations when you start with freediving. An "easy" solution is to ignore it and push it, but that isn't the answer at all. It is therefore a good sign that you chose to wonder over the sensations you feel.

Most divers do experience a period relative ease, followed by a period of contractions. The exact experiences within each period is different for each person, and therefore it is important to increase the intensity of your training slowly. This gives you time to get accustomed how your body responds to hypoxic training and gives also time to get adapted for working under hypoxic circumstances.

Technique plays an important role in training for freediving. A good dive is influenced by both the swimming technique as the breath-up technique. A wrong breath-up technique, which is too fast, too shallow or too long can cause hyperventilation. Hyperventilation can cause anxiety and is an important cause of swimmingpool black-out. It can also cause the tingling sensation you describe, however, this is difficult to know without actually seeing you doing the dive. Therefore, getting the right instruction for the breath-up and swimming, is an important part for reaching your goals.

Getting instruction from a freedive instructor is the easiest solution to this problem, however, it might be difficult to find one. You might want to discus this problem with a swimming instructor of the local pool, and see if they can help you with the swimming technique. Some of these instructors might also be able to help you with a basic breath-up. This might not be ideal, but everything is better compared to dive without instruction.

Another important subject is having a safety buddy during your dives who can actual rescue you. Again, this is something to discus with the local swimming instructor or with any other aquatic leisure professional in your area.

I hope this helps to solve your problem.

 

[Croat]

Just relax ... it's all in your head.
I'm not diving for almost two years, two weeks ago I started preparations (table, breathing exercises, relaxation, running ...) at the beginning of my static was the max 1:30 to 1:40.
Prior to four days maximum static I was 4:18
Now I can easily keep breath for longer than three minutes.
Just relax and Train.

 

[Brent5738]

Thanks for all of the comprehensive responses!

So what I am getting from this is keep training/practicing, it's all in my head, and relax. Got it!

Any additional tips on getting through the physical agony? As much as I want to continue holding my breath, my body feels it is forcing me to breathe. It sounds easy to just ignore it, welcome the signs of hypoxia, and stay fast, but doing it is very difficult for me. I will continue to practice and let you all know how it goes.

Any more dry training techniques? I have tried apnea walking, and I am aweful at it. I guess Rome wasn't built in a day, right? :/

Also, I have read a lot about hypoxic swimming pyramids (and actually have done them), is it true that this is the best way to train with hypoxia in the water? What are other SAFE and effective ways to train in the water?

Lastly, are there any physical signs I should be cautious of while training?

 

[Bertrand]

Lately I've been doing tables 3 or 4x a week before going to sleep and because of the darkness and comfort of my bed I've been able to get a really good feel of how my contractions manifest.

When doing courses and talking to freedivers, there is often speak about having a contraction, then having one again a bit later, but for me it's continuous from some point. The muscles on the side of my belly start contracting and relaxing continuously, at first pretty slowly and without much force, but getting more fierce as the breath hold continues. I've tried trying to stop this (because i figure that muscles contracting use oxygen, which I am trying to avoid) by trying to focus my brain on relaxing those muscles, but so far my attempts have been useless.

While doing this I am VERY relaxed, I use a program on my laptop for the timing and most of the time I don't even hear the audio announcements for the first minute of the hold because I am sort of half asleep. I get 'awakened' by the contractions.

Don't get me wrong, it's very bearable at first, I've been able to 'endure' it for over 2 minutes quite easily, I am just looking for advice on how to stop or lessen the muscle movement if it's possible at all (other then just doing tables a lot and raising my tolerance for CO2 so they start later, I am already doing that).

 

[Rik]

Dear Bertrand,

Contractions are caused by a build-up of carbon-dioxide during your breath-hold and part of the game. Suppressing them is possible, but uses a lot of concentration effort, that can hamper training in the future. Accepting them and delay them by improving your technique and performance works best. It is important to remember that a great breath-hold training isn't related to length of the performance but to the quality of the performance effort.

As you probably know, freediving does have its safety issues and I see that you are residing in the Netherlands. There are freediving clubs in Eindhoven, Haarlem and Utrecht. Send me a p.m. if you have interest to train with freedivers and I will see who can help you with that.

 

[trux]

Also, stopping the contractions will not necessarily improve your time. On one side it is true that the muscles consume some oxygene, but on the other hand, the contractions increase the intrapulmonary pressure (hence improve intake of the remianing oxygen in the lungs), and due to it the cerebral blood pressure also increases, helping so oxygenating the brain and keeping you conscious.

 

[blueface]

Thanks trux! That will definately provide some incentive to endure a few more. Fifty or so is all I can stand.

 

[Kars]

My suggestions are:

1) Table A - CO2 table.

2) Increasing general Flexibility.

3) Learn how to deeply relax every part of your body.

4) Increase lactic acid tolerance.

5) Make sure your cardio level is above average.

6) Good food and nutrition at the right time - not before training. It's better to do training before eating - be hydrated.

7) Also you goal should NOT be time. It's should be learning relaxation, technique.

8) I suggest when you do a table B (O2), you do not aim for time, but rather for perceived effort levels. Your buddy will record silently the time, but you just go for something like this: 40% 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, dive. You'll see a big gab between the actual times of the first dives, that is due to getting warmed up, easing into the divemode / mood. Training this way prevents pushing to hard on "off"-days, and allowing for a cool personal best on a good day.

Enjoy your journey!

Kars

ps Bertrand ik leef in Centraal Brabant, als je 'n keer samen wilt trainen, geef maar 'n gil

 

[mermaidgirl]

William posted this on FB
TRAINING TIP - expert level


scrawled by Vertical Blue on t' date o' Day o' the Moon, Arrrrgust 23, 2010 roundabouts 2:59 in the evenin'

A maximal performance in a pool discipline seems to be divided into three different phases of roughly equal lengths. These are especially prominent in 'no warm-up' performances, which are becoming the standard for maximal attempts in most disciplines at an internationally competitive level.

1. 'Easy Phase': before the urge to breathe commences - in this phase it is easy to relax and concentrate on technique.
2. 'Struggle Phase': contractions arrive and become more prominent - psychologically this is the most difficult part of the dive, since we are already experiencing discomfort but might be at less than half of our target performance.
3. 'End Phase': at a certain point the contractions become more bearable, though they by no means go away, and it feels like time passes quicker and the breath hold somehow becomes 'easier.' Here we must bring our attention to the mind, to make sure that we remain lucid and can judge the right moment to conclude the performance.

Being aware of these phases, we can use them to our advantage, by using motivational techniques or setting ourselves goals to get through the difficult second phase, in the knowledge that then we should be able to continue through the third phase without too much difficulty.


Ben Weiss (left, coached by DeeDee Flores) and William Trubridge (right, coached by Brittany Trubridge) perform in static apnea at the 2010 Teams World Championships in Okinawa,Japan

• any thoughts on how this works for those who don't get contractions?
  
  
  
• Vertical Blue Though you don't get contractions you will definitely get some kind of urge to breathe, which will probably increase to a certain point, then plateau and maybe even drop off again - following the course of the three stages above.
  
  
  
• Chris Marshall The only thing you missed was lactic load/muscle failure increasing from the second stage onwards in DYN/DNF.
  
  
  
• Vertical Blue True that! Thanks Chris!