stomach mouthfill

[sodeds]

i want to begin by emphasizing that what im about to say is a imaginery brain storming. i dont think its practical or safe. i myself am not a deep freediver and i am not planning nor recommending to try this. in fact, im not so sure why the hell im saying this at all...i guess i just what to throw a crazy idea around and see what kind of responses it gets.

my idea is to "come up" with a mouthfill techniqe that involves the stomach:

in the "hatha yoga pradipika" -a 12th century text- there is a description of a pranayama technique named plavini: the inner part of the abdomen being completely filled with air, one can float like a lotus leaf on water.
this pranayama technique is exceptional because it dosnt involve the air in the lungs but rather drawing the air in the stomach [and exert it through the mouth or the anus].

the human stomach can hold 1-4 liters of food. i have a very small stomach but i can easily pack 1+ liter of air in it on an empty stomach.

now at 30m' that 1 liter is compressed to 250cc and all you need to do is "burp" it up and you have a nice mouthfill - is it enough for a deep dive?

now when the stomach if full it is harder to take a full inhalation. on the other hand it can be useful in FRC. also you have to be head-up (so you don't get stomach fluid up the pipe)and master burping at depth. on the other hand the stomach doesn't have a negative pressure.
and finally if some air moves from the stomach to the small intestine when in depth...i don't want to imagine what will happen when it expands during resurface!!!​

i want to end by emphasizing that what im about to say is a imaginery brain storming. i dont think its practical or safe. i myself am not a deep freediver and i am not planning nor recommending to try this. in fact, im not so sure why the hell im saying this at all...

...out of boredom perhaps ...
​

 

[Simos]

Haha I was, believe it or not, thinking about this a few days ago - must have been bored.

There is a long thread called 'deep dives without mouthfil?' or something like that where I asked the same question (ie whether equalising with air from the stomach could be a possibility) but everyone ignored it which was a nice and polite way of telling me that I was talking nonsense lol

Let's entertain the idea for argument's sake (as we both know that it's probably a rubbish idea lol) - my thoughts:

1. When I was thinking of equalisation from the stomach, I was thinking it as a possible replacement for reverse packing deeper than RV. Why would you want to burp to fill the MF at 30m? No big advantage there...

2. Good point that it might not work if upside down - not sure if true but makes sense. I was reading a freediver's blog a couple of weeks ago and on a deep dive she got an involuntary burp (she didn't manage to add the air to her MF). Coming to think about it she was head up on a sled.

3. Regarding your question on MF - it depends on the quality\quantity of the MF but a decent mouthfil at 30m (or even less) should take you to 100m+

4. I used to pack air into my stomach too (as a kid) and it's quite easy, as well as burp if at will later

 

[Chris_C_NZ]

This is so obviously written by a fella, coz no woman would ever admit to burping or farting..

 

[Simos]

No one has to admit, we can see the bubbles lol

 

[sodeds]

hi simos.
yes i remember that everyone ignored your question on the "deep dive without MF" thread. i also assume that all how ignored it didnt practice the "plavini" as a yogic exercise: filling the stomach to the max and sitting 30 minutes in a sitting pose, or 10 minutes in a headstand and letting the air move through out the digestive system and out the anus. cus after that you might think that it is a little less unreasonable.

1. When I was thinking of equalisation from the stomach, I was thinking it as a possible replacement for reverse packing deeper than RV. Why would you want to burp to fill the MF at 30m? No big advantage there...

no problem - you can use the air in the stomach at any depth, it will just be more compressed so the mouth fill will be smaller but thats the difference between the lungs and stomach: as you go deeper it is harder to get air from the lungs because of the negative pressure. the stomach has no negative pressure!

2. Good point that it might not work if upside down - not sure if true but makes sense.

another difference between the lungs and stomach is that the lugs is filld only with air - the stomach with stomach fluids + what you ate and air. think of a bottle with little water in and the rest air, now turn it upside down so the water is at the bottom where the bottle's opening is. there is no way of getting the air out without it pushing the water first. [unfortunately i tried to burp in head stand and that is exactly what happened]

anyway i appreciate we are having this silly discussion for argument sake.
Oded.

 

[Simos]

Well not sure it's silly necessarily, might not work but there are lots of things in freediving that I bet sounded crazy at the time and now considered to be standard knowledge and obvious. We're all still learning so worth discussing even ideas that sound silly.

When I first thought about this, I had in mind a childhood friend that could pack lots of air into his stomach (it was actually packing, of course we didn't know about packing or Freediving back then, this was 20 years ago!). In fact he could pack so much air that he would then burp it all out at will and use it to say long sentences while burping. That's A LOT of air...

I could do something similar to a lesser extend. I bet if you search on youtube you'll find lots of people that can do this.

The main attraction for me would be that you wouldn't need to take a big early mouthfil, nor worry about reverse packing at depth that could lead to a squeeze... You'd just... burp! Lol

 

[efattah]

Some people tried using the stomach as an air reserve in the 90's... without much success.

 

[sodeds]

Some people tried using the stomach as an air reserve in the 90's... without much success.

do you happen to know which part of it failed? (was it hard to extract in depth or nit enough volume...etc')

 

[efattah]

People could not get the air back up, because they were upside down.

 

[alonrivkind]

One bright morning there will be a freediver that will come up with a perfect burp mouthfill...:yack

 

[efattah]

Well, the magician that pulled off that huge static in scandinavia, exhaling the entire time, probably had some air sac in his stomach with a tube linking his esophagus to his stomach. So it has probably been done before.

 

[Simos]

The freefall stage of the dive might need to be feet first then ;-) And probably the monofin needs to go on the hands, not the feet lol

 

[sodeds]

People could not get the air back up, because they were upside down.

but the reason for that, as i explained, is obvious! did anyone tried it head up, on a sled for example?

 

[Simos]

Sodeds not sure if anyone tried but in a recent VWT deep dive according to the diver there was an unintentional burp at depth that messed up their mouthfil as they weren't expecting it, which would imply that it's possible to get air out a depth using this method.

I don't know if you were to invoke a burp at depth whether you would be in danger of some other kind of squeeze eg around the trachea or something like this.

 

[sodeds]

Sodeds not sure if anyone tried but in a recent VWT deep dive according to the diver there was an unintentional burp at depth that messed up their mouthfil as they weren't expecting it, which would imply that it's possible to get air out a depth using this method.

I don't know if you were to invoke a burp at depth whether you would be in danger of some other kind of squeeze eg around the trachea or something like this.

im sure that if it had been expected the burp would not have messed up the mouth fill.
as for dangers: the air that comes out the stomach goes through the esophagus not the trachea. as i said before: the stomach and esophagus has no negative pressure, that is, they can compress to almost 0 volume, that is its natural state with out pressure. so no sqeeze there. the only dander i can think of is air escaping to the intestine witch cant expand so much and while resurfacing could make a lot of damage.

 

[Simos]

I wasn't thinking about the air coming out but more about the throat movement needed to voluntarily burp - feels like it creates some strain but I have no idea of whether this would affect or squeeze anything.

Good point on the intestine. There is only one way to guard against that lol