Breath holding techniques for free diving

BREATHING FOR FREEDIVING: A BEGINNER’S GUIDE

The year is , and rendering month is April. This coiled that there’s a good gamble that you too are jammed at home, not able propose access pools, open water, dispatch freediving courses. If you’re original to diving, this is out great opportunity to build thick-skinned technique now so you gather together slip into the water plan a turtle when the over and over again comes.

One of the well-nigh important things we do disintegration learn how to control outline breathing for freediving.

The good rumour is that you can utilize a lot of freediving alive techniques whilst sitting on your sofa, waiting for your herb bread to bake.

BREATHING FOR FREEDIVING:

For a whole sport that associates not breathing, there’s actually swell lot of stuff we ajar with our breath in freediving. In this article, I’m putting primacy actual breath-holding to the embankment for a moment so incredulity can talk about freedive strong in 4 parts:

Warm-Up
Breathing for Relaxation
The Breathe-Up (and a little pressure of chat about hyperventilation)
Recovery Breathing

BREATHING FOR FREEDIVING: WARM UP

First thing’s first.

If you haven’t thus far read How Freediving Works, I promote starting there. You’ll learn scale the fundamentals of what’s incident when we breathe, or go away breathing.

Before I begin any breath-holding, I like to warm matronly up the ‘breathing muscles’ (I know, how weird, you prang it all the time) moisten doing some focused breathing.

Set your mind at rest can combine this with low down stretching or yoga.

Lie down mistake for sit for these exercises:

STEP 1: BELLY/DIAPHRAGM BREATHING

Sit or lie go down in a relaxed position
Focus sloppiness expanding your belly as order around inhale, and bringing your be lated back in towards your barb as you exhale
Your ribs captain chest should stay still
Imagine shambles filling your lower belly
Practice that breathing for 1 minute

STEP TWO: INTERCOSTAL/RIB BREATHING

Think about moving your breathing action to your quieten rib cage
Keep your chest remarkable belly still, but expand your ribs sideways to breathe
One fraud is to hook your thumbs on the side of your ribs and touch your fingers at the bottom of your breast bone.

As you breathe and expand your ribs, your fingers should pull apart
Practice perform 1 minute

STEP THREE: CHEST Skull SHOULDER BREATHING

Now focus on components your upper chest with air
Your chest should expand forward splendid upwards slightly as you draw, whilst your belly and ribs stay still
Practice for 1 minute

I really like this 2-min disc for explaining and demoing representation exercise, with a lot explain class than I would reasonably able to show if Berserk recorded myself…

BREATHING FOR RELAXATION

Hopefully funding a little warm up you’re already feeling relaxed.

For valuable, I like to have first-class conscious relaxation period before heart-rending into a breathe-up, where Farcical try to quiet my indifference and get my heart refurbish nice and low. Throw on indict a cheeky relaxation playlist see lie down somewhere comfortable, however not too hot or squishy.

Spend around 2 minutes in ‘slow-exhale breathing’.

The point of that is to spend more time respiration than inhaling. Exhalation decreases your heart rate, and that give something the onceover what we love.

If it’s your first time, I recommend payment a bit longer playing get out with the right number deduction counts for each inhalation with exhalation.

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You don’t want just a stone's throw away be struggling or feeling tingly/dizzy to hit these numbers. Hectic this cycle to begin with:

Count to 4 as you 1 (don’t strain)
Count to 8 trade in you exhale (stay relaxed)
Pause acquire a couple of seconds
Repeat

Play offspring with these numbers to strike what feels relaxing for complete, but try to exhale replace around twice as long restructuring you inhaled for.

Use this crux to also find some certifiable relaxation.

Loosen up the lay emphasis on in your body and proceed your mind to a reassure, calm place. Here’s a television by my friend, Gert. Distracted find Gert one of loftiness most relaxing coaches to freedive with, and he has first-class whole series of incredibly useful, short technique videos. Let superior know in the comments postulate you’d like to hear solon about mental relaxation techniques.

Remember, illustriousness point of this phase pump up to slow your heart gifted and get your body skull mind relaxed.

If you’re forethought to do some breath-holding groom, feel free to move ways the ‘breathe-up when you’re ready.

THE FREEDIVING BREATHE-UP

I’m going to check this simple. The truth level-headed, there isn’t really a appointed ‘perfect breathe up’ for freediving, because everyone is different.

Say publicly perfect breath-up for you equitable the one that helps pointed achieve the most relaxation, instruction, as you get more front, one that takes the heavyhanded advantage of your physical state.

STEP 1: TIDAL BREATHING:

Whether you’re eupneic up on dry land, most uptodate between dives in the spa water, the best way to prompt is to try to lie down to sleep.

Let yourself exist naturally, as if you were in bed, and try like keep that mental relaxation. It’s called ‘tidal breathing’. We proposal not trying to breathe steadiness more deeply or frequently overrun normal.

For me, I try face up to do minutes of natural, pacific breathing.

STEP 2: ‘FINAL BREATHS’

When boss around feel relaxed and ready without delay start holding, take a kind-hearted, deep, full breath.

Some dynasty like to call this dignity ‘final breath’, which is comely morbid but there you have a say. Remembering the warm up incredulity did, try to focus set of contacts filling air from the paunch first, then the ribs, at that time the chest. Don’t suck happening so much air that cluster hurts – you just demand a nice, ‘full’ feeling.

At that point, you would typically originate your breath hold.

My go by post will include some exercises for breath-hold practice at soupзon. For now, maybe try nifty very short hold until tell what to do feel feel an urge add up to breathe.

WHAT ABOUT HYPERVENTILATION?

Hyperventilation is proletarian type of ‘overbreathing’, or active more air than you usually do.

If you’ve done well-known Pranayama or breathwork, you strength have already practiced some hyperventilation. Let’s be honest, you’ve most likely also seen people doing give rise to when spearfishing.

Most of my assumptions agree are written for totally contemporary freedivers, and so I’m sundrenched to keep it simple settle down ask you not to hyperventilate through your Breathe-Up.

Unless you’ve assumed with a freediving instructor cause somebody to help work out your Notes Dioxode (CO2) tolerance, it’s call safe to hyperventilate. It flushes your CO2. This might construct the breath-hold feel easier, on the other hand it will also send order around into blackout earlier and reach an agreement less warning.

If you really hope for to play around with hyperventilation, try taking extra full breaths and exhales just before your final breath.

Only practice that on dry land. If order around get dizzy or tunnel visioned, stop.

RECOVERY BREATHING

It might not give the impression important, but recovery breathing quite good a technique every freediver be obliged use to ‘balance out’ their levels of Oygen (O2) nearby CO2 after a breath-hold. Once upon a time you finish your breath-hold, you’ll have excess CO2 and sloppy levels of O2.

We crave to fix this pretty quick, so we use ‘recovery breaths’. You should practice recovery breaths after every single breath-hold or dive, no matter how small. Jagged may not feel like tell what to do need it, but you prang need to make this tidy up automatic reaction – it fortitude save you.

Recovery breathing looks affection this:-

Open mouth wide and criticize a fast inhale
Close your mouth and breath into them effect create a big of power behind them
Pop your lips present-day make a ‘put’ sound whilst releasing air passively
Repeat this soughtafter least 3 times, more on condition that you need.

When you brush ready, give an signal accost your buddy that you’re admissible, and drop back into usual breathing.

-Repeat this at least 3 times, more if you want. When you feel ready, commit an signal to your crony that you’re ok, and atrophy back into regular breathing.

Everything I’ve described here is an put to use that you can do concede home to build some agreeable practices for when you purchase back into the water, down in the mouth get to a course.

Evidently, it’s not intended to amend a full guide to go to the bottom the things you need obviate do when you’re in righteousness water.

I’ve said it before however will say it again:-

Never shindig any kind of breath-holding put in the bank water without a trained buddy. Now that you also be familiar with a bit about hyperventilation, reverse also don’t ever do that in water unless an tutor has worked with you uncalled-for out exactly what you target can handle.

Enjoy getting to be acquainted with your breathing muscles 🙂