Part of the reason I am keeping this blog, is simply to track my progress. One thing is for sure is that progress is going to be small steps at achieving the various milestones. Today was another day for small steps in the right direction. After a good 2 hour yoga and meditation session to get myself and the others in the right frame of mind, I improved my personal best dry breath hold to 3min 29 sec. The dive was rather rough with the weather coming in. Not what I would call ideal training weather, but we were there to dive. My best free dive for the day was 13m. I definitely could push to 20m but didn't want to push the envelope yet. As the diving becomes second nature, so I will push the limits. It was amazing to stop a few meters from a Humpback whale and her calf, and on our return the almost 3 or 4 pods of dolphins. I jumped in but somehow missed them as they were on a feeding mission. So the free dive with dolphins must wait for another day. Maybe the same day I break the 20m mark...(Jacques Mayol smiles...)  |
| Depth 13 meters, time 53sec. |
Monday, December 20, 2010
Small Steps...
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Breath up's...
Naturally a breath up is what happens just before you do a breath hold, and thats where my focus has been since my first session and static apnea pool sessions. It must be remembered that static apnea in the pool is considerably easier than static apnea being practiced outside of the pool. The reason for this is that the body has a function known as "The mammalian diving reflex". this reflex is activated when the head is submerged under water and the effect is a reduction of up to 50% in the heart rate. This is a natural reaction and all humans posses this.
So because the heart rate is slower when submerged the logical place to practice breath holds would be in the pool. However black-outs occur when pushing the boundaries, and this is best described as when the body "resets" itself and forces you to breath. If you blackout on dry land you will automatically collapse, reset and start breathing. The human body is quite amazing though, if you blackout in water, the body has another reflex that in a way over-rides the blackout. This reflex is called laryngospasm, and basically this means your larynx closes up to stop water from entering your lungs. As a result, the golden rule of free diving is never dive alone. If you were to blackout under water, your buddy just brings you up and your body does the rest. You will start breathing shortly thereafter and your oxygen saturation should be back to normal within a minute.
Right, so that leaves me doing breath ups and breath holds on dry land. Yes, more difficult but safer and better prep for the pool sessions. I am currently doing 5 min breath ups, followed by breath hold which I repeat 5 times. Here is my last session and you can see the gradual breath hold improvements. (1) 02:27.4 (2) 02:38.9 (3) 02:33.4 (4) 02:51.4 (5) 02:55.1.
Thursday is the next session in advanced breath holding and I look forward to comfortably get beyond the 3 minute mark soon. Hopefully the ocean plays along and I can start looking at the 10m dive mark.
For now my personal bests are 6m depth and 3min 10 sec breath hold.
So because the heart rate is slower when submerged the logical place to practice breath holds would be in the pool. However black-outs occur when pushing the boundaries, and this is best described as when the body "resets" itself and forces you to breath. If you blackout on dry land you will automatically collapse, reset and start breathing. The human body is quite amazing though, if you blackout in water, the body has another reflex that in a way over-rides the blackout. This reflex is called laryngospasm, and basically this means your larynx closes up to stop water from entering your lungs. As a result, the golden rule of free diving is never dive alone. If you were to blackout under water, your buddy just brings you up and your body does the rest. You will start breathing shortly thereafter and your oxygen saturation should be back to normal within a minute.
Right, so that leaves me doing breath ups and breath holds on dry land. Yes, more difficult but safer and better prep for the pool sessions. I am currently doing 5 min breath ups, followed by breath hold which I repeat 5 times. Here is my last session and you can see the gradual breath hold improvements. (1) 02:27.4 (2) 02:38.9 (3) 02:33.4 (4) 02:51.4 (5) 02:55.1.
Thursday is the next session in advanced breath holding and I look forward to comfortably get beyond the 3 minute mark soon. Hopefully the ocean plays along and I can start looking at the 10m dive mark.
For now my personal bests are 6m depth and 3min 10 sec breath hold.
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