Originally posted by thin_air
here is how to do the BTV (thats what the no hands thing is called)
-loosen all tight things aroud your neck
-keep your head up
-hold your hyoid bone (thats the bone that holds up the adams apple) in one hand, dont squeeze to hard:duh look in a mirror to see the adams apple
-do these exercises in the morning, on an empty stomach, take a 5 sec. rest between exercises
-this exercise is 1 month in lenght devided into 4 one week periods
a. tongue exercises
1. with your mouth wide open, try to touch your nose with your tongue then bring your tongue back into your mouth as far back as you can, while pressing down and back with the tip
while doing this control the lowering of the adams apple (which will go from its highest point to its lowest......
now for the rest
2.with your mouth wide open place the tip of your tongue behind your 2 front (top) teeth, and slowly draw it back on the roof of your mouth, trying to touch uvula(the thing that hangs in the back of your throat)
3. with your mouth wide open place the tip of your tongue on your to front (bottom) teeth, try to stick as much of your tongue out of your mouth as possible while keeping the tip on your 2 front (bottom) teeth
b. exercises for the rear of the roof of the mouth (they say the actual name of this area, but i dont know the actual name in french)
With your mouth wide open (as usual, jee, this is getting kinda repetetive,
), and your tongue resting, practice swallowing to the point that the rear part of the roof of your mouth contracts while trying to control the lowering movement of your adams apple. this exercise is successfully complete when you start getting an upset stomach
c. this exercise will combine both the tongue movement and the partial swallowing, with the mouth wide open
duh who would have guessed), press the tip of the tongue on the 2 front (bottom) teeth, and the back of the tongue pressing down and back in the back of the mouth, perform the partial swallow (up to the point of the contrating at the rear of the roof of your mouth)
these exercises are for the first week, for the second week add the following exercises
d.
with your mouth half closed (hey were getting closer to actually being able to do this while diving, now only half of the water that was getting in before is getting in :t ) stick your lower jaw out as much as possible, place the tip of your tongue behind your 2 front (bottom) teeth, try to stick your tongue out as much as possible, and perform the partial swallowing trick
e. exercise with the mouth closed (finally :duh )
with your mouth closed (why do they bother repeating that..)perform exercises b,c,d with the emphisis placed on exercise b
exercises for week 3 (if your still with us at this point good job)
practice all of the exercises, but at a faster rythem, with emphisis on b, with the mouth closed
exercises for week 4
pratice all of the exercises a,b,c,d, and increase the number of "e" exercises
5 times exercises c,d,e
10 times exercise b
perform a "hard" valsalva maneouver (how is that spelled?) twice a week, then try clearing it up (untill you loose the "full" feeling in your ears) using the partial swallowing with your mouth closed technique, see how many contractions at the back of your mouth are nessacery before you can clear your ears
well, there you go, translated into common mans english (the only english i know)
ha ha ha, have fun trying the exercise, i have to wait till i get rid of this cold to start, my ears are plugged solid (anyone know an easy way to clear up my ears and sinuses>?)
