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Tom Sietas 213 m DNF !!!!!

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 90 days.
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How good to see someone liberating himself from the constrains we put on ourselves! Very heroic... I can only imagine how free a man Tom feels right now. Very touching - thank you Tom Sietas!
 
Incredible Tom, congratulations!
I guess these STA and DNF records will remain unbeaten for a while, and make the rest of us feel humble (well, I already felt humble:-)
Going for DYN as well?
 
Looks like Tom has thown away the 'Bubca-break' and really is going 'All out'!

Thank you Tom for your couragious decision and great new record!

Love, Courage and water!

Kars
 
Unbelievable performance!

It'll take some serious time for others to catch up :)

I wonder how does his training look like...

Now there's just DYN, i can't wait
 
Well the increddible 244m Mullins put down surely isn't going to be an easy blow!

I heard of Tom he has done a dynamic with fins of 250m in training a while ago, but still being able to put it all together at that specific moment is a great mental strength.

All the Best Tom, you earned your name in the recordbooks!

Love, Courage and Water,

Kars
 
Hi all,
Do you know a web site where we can follow Tom's program for his next attempts in Hamburg (especially his DYN performance ?). Is he going with bi-fins, or changed to monofin ?

Much exciting ! :)
 
For the German readers: :)
And for those who can't understand german: There are some pictures, too.

(Don't know how long this link will work. It is from one of the most visited webpages in Germany!)

Apnoe-Tauchen: Weltrekordler Sietas schafft 213 Meter mit einem Atemzug - Sport - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten

I try to learn whatever I can from great performances, and I found some excerpts from that article interesting. However, I cannot read German, so I relied on Google to translate the page, which is imperfect.
  • "Because it is tiring to make sure what you do all day than if you only aufstehst, cleans your teeth and go into the water," says the 31-year-old. He has not eaten, drunk only water. Just as the costs of moving the body digestive energy, which he later can bring valuable meters. He has taken an elevator to the pool, not the stairs.'

  • '...sets a weight belt around the waist and one around his neck, a total of about ten kilograms.'

  • '"You have to start at the beginning that you still have a little lift and do not end up too much downforce," he explains. "Because you use even air, which means your lungs during the dive smaller, about the output."'

  • 'Ten minutes before the dive Sietas begins to breathe faster, hyperventilate...'

  • '...a total of nearly ten litres of water below.'

  • 'He breathes deep one last time, the pulse is down to 45, he appears under.'

  • 'After about 75 meters of logs respiratory irritant. Sietas has learned to ignore him.'
- 10kg seems like a lot of weight to use. I'm sure that 10L lungs require a lot of weight, but I wouldn't have expected that much. Does anyone know how thick his wetsuit was? Looks like at least a 3mm:

0,1020,1231019,00.jpg


- What was he saying about needing a little "lift" at the beginning? Maybe the translation just isn't good, but did he say that he likes to have slight positive buoyancy at the beginning?

- He hyperventilates for 10 minutes before the start? I've only seen one video of him, the one in which he does an O2 static of over 16 minutes, in which it appeared that he practiced rather aggressive hyperventilation for several minutes before his performance. Does he always hyperventilate that much?

- Maybe the translation is bad, but did it say that his pulse was only 45 when he started the performance? Even after all the hyperventilation? I don't see how that's possible. It seems impossible to keep one's heartrate below even 100 with hyperventilation.

- Tom admits to feeling uncomfortable at only 75m, which I'm guessing may be when his contractions or "struggle phase" starts. This seems rather early considering the entire length of his performance (at best, 75m is when my contractions start, but that's beyond my halfway point). Does anyone know when his contractions start in his statics? It seems like a shared trait among some of the great apneists is the ability to endure very long struggle phases, indicating greater low oxygen tolerance?

I'm sure a lot more can be learned (or a lot more questions developed) when a video is released.
 
- What was he saying about needing a little "lift" at the beginning? Maybe the translation just isn't good, but did he say that he likes to have slight positive buoyancy at the beginning?

- He hyperventilates for 10 minutes before the start? I've only seen one video of him, the one in which he does an O2 static of over 16 minutes, in which it appeared that he practiced rather aggressive hyperventilation for several minutes before his performance. Does he always hyperventilate that much?

- Maybe the translation is bad, but did it say that his pulse was only 45 when he started the performance? Even after all the hyperventilation? I don't see how that's possible. It seems impossible to keep one's heartrate below even 100 with hyperventilation.

The "lift thing" is easy: There was an elevator to reach the pool. He didn't walk up the stairs ;-)

Your translation with the "45" war right - but I, too, doubt that it is right.
 
Hi Kurt,

- I recal Tom uses a 3mm suit.
- lift in regard to his preperation, is meaning he uses the escalator instead of stairs to minimise any use of energy. In regard to the dive itself, there is a little boyancy change happening during a long dynamic. So it's important to choose one's weights wisely, not to be nutral in the beginning, but struggleing to stay of the bottom in the end for instance.
- I've seen Tom prepairing in competition, and it just looks like normal slow breathing. But when you have big lungs a deep breath quickly becomes more ventilation than the body requiers, hence Hyperventilation.

- I think the journalist may have screwed up some numers and may have put his 45 resting pulls before he starts his final 'breath-up'.

- The urge to breathe is not equal to having contractions, these may lay far appart.
A friend of mine does not have contractions, 'only' an extreme sence of discomfort.

Kars
 
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One of the reasons Tom is able to keep a low hart rate at the start is because he does not inhale to the max using lots of muscle efford , but after a big below max gulp gradual fills up his lungs to way above max by small (but lots and lots and lots) of packs.

Regarding his contractions. I asked him some time ago and like most 'normal' fredivers he gets contractions around 3:30 or around, but manages to withstand them for 6-7 minutes. This may have changed some since this was about 1,5 years ago but his technique is not revolving around delaying contractions but rather ignoiring them over a very olong period.

Regarding neckweights. Lots of people underestimate how much you need for a perfect trimmed body in nofins. Even with my small 6 liter lungs and only a 3 mm pants i need around 3,5 kg's to be perfectly horizontal.
Add several liters air and a 3 mm top and you need massive more kilos. But this can be very different for each person depending on build.
 
One of the reasons Tom is able to keep a low hart rate at the start is because he does not inhale to the max using lots of muscle efford , but after a big below max gulp gradual fills up his lungs to way above max by small (but lots and lots and lots) of packs.

Regarding his contractions. I asked him some time ago and like most 'normal' fredivers he gets contractions around 3:30 or around, but manages to withstand them for 6-7 minutes. This may have changed some since this was about 1,5 years ago but his technique is not revolving around delaying contractions but rather ignoiring them over a very olong period.

Regarding neckweights. Lots of people underestimate how much you need for a perfect trimmed body in nofins. Even with my small 6 liter lungs and only a 3 mm pants i need around 3,5 kg's to be perfectly horizontal.
Add several liters air and a 3 mm top and you need massive more kilos. But this can be very different for each person depending on build.

It would be interesting to know when do people like Herbert , Martin ....and other top freedivers get contractions.
 
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