Static - more breath up questions

[Walrus]

Training for a comp I wouldn't recomend short rests before your final static. It's very difficult to get your timing perfect in a comp, and just adds to stress if you can't get it right. If say you had a 4 minute rest prior to your perfomance but were running late by 1-2 minutes you would really stuff up your static. I used to train with having a 7 minute rest and try and be exact about it. In comp was impossible to get your timing right. Now I train with long rests anywhere between 8-12 minutes. A few minutes less or more makes no difference then. I didn't do it for training PB's I did it for maximum performance in a comp. But after I got used to training it, I still got PB's also.

Regards to the hyperventilating thing:-
Some people can never bypass contractions or urge to breathe before they BO. For some 10 deep breaths is over breathing, for others a minute of fast deep breathing won't even delay the urge to breathe by much. I can hyperventilate until the cows come home and still get over 2 minutes of contractions on a static. :duh :waterwork
For a normal final static with a "mild" breatheup I start getting contractions at around the 3.30 mark. The latest I have ever delayed contractions is 4.30, that was after doing a heavy warmup including a 3.30 exhale static, and then hyperventilated like mad until I was super tingly. Yes I was doing this dry.

Now when I compare this to a training buddy:- He does almost no deep breaths at all, can hardly see it. Then on a final static starts getting contractions at around 6.30. If his really pushing he might get up to 8 contractions, wow !
I used to count contractions a long time ago, I stopped when I regulary got to over 100 :duh


Cheers,
Wal

 

[Narsil]

Interesting thread.

I always considered that hyperventilation required relatively rapid breathing, causing dizzyness, tingling extremities etc. When spearfishing especially, I'm very careful to avoid this happenning to any significant extent, and also to avoid overpacking before a deepish dive - anything that might lead to feeling "high" or getting near a BO.

With doing statics, in fact in all my diving, I've tended to concentrate on really slow, deep breathing, with perhaps one or two purging breaths to blow off a bit of CO2 before an static/ dynamic attempt or a deepish dive.

I'm really interested however in Jome's comment:

If you static is limited by simply having a huge urge to breathe, but you've never been even close to samba, you may try a little more ventilation. The primary and preferred method would of course be to learn to tolerate it further...But you may try experimenting with ventilating slightly more.

I've never had a BO to my knowledge, and I have a sad tendency to wimp out on statics well before my capacity (wet PB just over 7min, often give up around 5.30 - 6 mins). Although it goes against my self imposed discipline, I might add a short burst of faster ventillation at the end of my normal breath up to see if it makes a difference.

 

[jome]

Just had to add so there's no misconception. I absolutely do not recommend any form of ventilation more than 2-3 deep breaths for spearfishing.

You can experiment with ventilation, but only under controlled and safe environment, ie. at the pool with a buddy who knows what you're up to.

For people who can push theirselves to samba regularly, ventilation does absolutely nothing except diminish performance. In fact, they'll propably find a second or two from breathing drasticly less...

 

[immerlustig]

hi,

the majority of our friends with good to excellent static performances don't breathe a lot before a static. i.e. 2-4 breaths a minute (no max inhale/exhale). also contractions come around halfway through a max static, maybe slightly later. that also seems to be a good rule of thumb. i don't see any real argument that could favour hyperventilation, i see lots of good arguments for a slow breathe-up.

anyway, that's just my 2 cents

roland

 

[naiad]

I find that the effect of hyperventilation increases with subsequent statics. If I hyperventilate a lot for a first static, it doesn't have any bad effects and I have done this many times without problems. For a second static, I have to be more careful, and for the third or more, I can sometimes do very little and still not get contractions.

This may be because the breathing reflex becomes less strong with each attempt.

Lucia

 

[acho]

i don't see any real argument that could favour hyperventilation, i see lots of good arguments for a slow breathe-up.

That's exactly what I think. Being rather newbie to freediving, I usually:

1. Just relax - natural breathing - without even thinking about all that inhale/exhale stuff ;-)
2. Slowly breathe using the 1:2:4:2 pattern (inhale, breathhold lasting twice as long, exhale 4x, breathhold 2x).
3. Do a 2:00 static no matter how I feel at the end.
4. Repeat 2. for 3 mins.
4. Go for a max static.

In 3 weeks it took me to 4:50, which I think is not that bad...

Just another 2 cents