My thoughts
Replies to various questions:
- How long a fast? (David)
> I once graphed my apnea time vs. time without food. After 6 hours of fasting the benefit becomes less and less. After 24 hours there is no more change at all. But, keep in mind that simple sugars help raise your RQ right before your static; they will take you out of ketosis (which occurs after fasting)
- How much to push it (David)
> Depends on your situation. David; If you are going from 5:15 (1st contraction) to 6:00 (in the water!) without a spotter, I'd be very worried...it is possible to samba/BO after only 20 seconds of contractions, and some people (Fred S.) can samba without ever having any contractions. However, in my opinion if you have ventilated properly, you should manage 1:30 - 2:00 of contractions before vision starts fading. If vision fades less than 1:30 after the 1st contraction, you overventilated.
- Packing for static (Bill)
> Herbert and I do a similar pattern; pack tons on the first few statics. The whole static should be extremely uncomfortable. However, your lungs are stretching. Each one will get more comfortable. Then, on the big one, pack almost full, then move the air into your cheeks, and close your throat. This offloads pressure from your lungs, and allows your heart to slow a bit. Then, when you need it, suck the air back down. Using this sequence, I reached all my best statics, being almost uncomfortably full for the first few minutes.
- Warm up sequence (DSV)
> This will take a while to go through. First I will show you what gave me the best results, then we'll talk theory.
My two best days of statics had the following patterns:
Feb 26 / 2002
11:40pm, pulse 56-59, T=97.3F
1. Two breaths, 3'30, no contractions, easy
2. Recovered with 4-5 breaths, rested 20 seconds, then 2 breaths, 5'43 (3'48), 30 contractions
3. Hyperventilated for 1 minute, full exhale, 2'38 static
4. Hyperventilated for 3 minutes, full exhale, reverse pack, 2'11 static, with a samba at the end
5. Hyperventilated for 3 minutes, full exhale, 2'29 static, samba at the end
6. Fire breathing for 2'30, full inhale+pack, 6'49 (6'00)
7. Fire breathing for 2'30, full inhale+pack, 7'35 (6'22)
March 19 / 2002
11:47pm, pulse 59-60, T=36.5C
1. Two breaths, 3'30, no contractions, easy
2. Recovered with 4-5 breaths, rested 20 seconds, then 2 breaths, 5'35 (3'40)
3. Hyperventilated 2 minutes, exhale, static 2'43, samba
4. No recovery, two breaths, exhale, static 1'27
5. Hyperventilated 2 minutes, exhale, static 2'44
6. Fire breathing for 2'30, full inhale+pack, 7'02
7. Fire breathing for 2'30, full inhale+pack, 7'24
Even though you only have 5 litres of blood (of which about half is water), your body contains around 50 litres of water. Not much O2 dissolves in water, but 50 litres is a lot, and you store about 5% of your O2 store in this water, which is referred to as the 'tissue' oxygen store. When your SaO2 drops below 80%, you start stealing oxygen from this 'tissue' store, and you enter 'deep tissue hypoxia'. This 'oxygen debt' can take a LONG time to replenish once you deplete it (because lactic acid also accumulates in your organs). Thus, if you do a single static where you go below 80% SaO2 for any length of time, you will enter into an oxygen debt which could take half an hour to replenish. If you breathe up quickly, within a couple of minutes your blood will be fully re-oxygenated, but your tissues will continue slowly stealing O2 from your blood, because they are still hypoxic. So, if you don't allow the 30 minutes to replenish the tissue store, you start out with about 5% less O2. However, waiting for 30 minutes is enough time for the apnea-reflex to reverse (i.e. spleen re-absorbs blood cells, metabolic rate increases etc.)
Doing extreme statics, inhale or exhale (even to the point of a samba), will bring on the apnea-reflex full force, but it will also put you into deep tissue hypoxia. At that point, if you start your next static soon, you will have the FULL benefit of the apnea-reflex, but you will be 5% deficient in oxygen. If, on the other hand, you wait 30 minutes to replenish your 5% tissue store, you lose a lot of your apnea-reflex. From my patterns above, you can see that I do not allow time to replenish the tissue store.
In March of 2000 I had tremendous success with the following pattern:
1. 4'00 statics, over and over, up to 8 times, short recoveries
2. Max static
In a good diver, a 4'00 static drops SaO2 to about 80%; if you don't breathe up much, the hypercapnia of the 4'00 will induce the apnea-reflex, without causing deep tissue hypoxia. The effect will be slower than a huge inhale or exhale static, so you will need to do many of them.
In less skilled breath-holders, you would need a 2'30 or 3'00 static at most, to avoid dropping below SaO2 = 80%.
I also had a series of 7'10 - 7'12 statics in 2001 when my warm up consisted of a single 3'30 static, followed by a 4'00 breathe up and the big one. The advantage then was I didn't enter deep tissue hypoxia, yet my apnea-reflex was not fully engaged either.
Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
