Increasing breath hold

[Angelo Farina]

Do not hyperventilate to increase breath hold when freediving. This technique kills children and untrained freedivers every year. Freedivers do not hyperventilate, they do some other breathing techniques that might look similar.

The reason not to hyperventilate is that your body judges the need to breathe based on CO2 buildup in the blood, NOT the level of oxygen reaching your brain. Hyperventilating can reduce the CO2 level to a point that you won't know how badly you need air until you pass out. Passing out in water = not good.

I strongly recommend you take a basic freediving class with a good instructor to learn about safety issues like this, and massively improve your technique/ breath hold time. I had been freediving quite seriously for over 20 years before getting any formal training, and a basic class taught me a LOT of things that I didn't know I didn't know.

As for increasing breath hold time, it's down to practice. Practice on dry land in a place where you won't be hurt if you pass out. When you're training in water HAVE AN ATTENTIVE BUDDY. Just practice increasing your hold time with a timer, look up how to do "freedive tables" (a training method), or get the "STAmina" app which helps you do tables.

I can confirm this entirely. At 20 years old I was a free diver and I passed out twice after eccessive hypervenyilation...
Both times I was saved, but this was enough for ending my free diver career

 

[Joris Vd]

In my opinion, if you are getting to the point of having these contractions, you've already stepped over the bounds. Those contractions are there for a reason--high CO2 buildup. There are better ways of free diving than going all the way to having respiratory contractions. If you are going this far, you are potentially setting yourself up for shallow water blackout. And, as mentioned by the other poster, sea_ledford, this should never be practiced in the water.

SeaRat

I should have probably worded this differently. I do this as a warmup exercise before doing O2 tables on land. You are entirely correct. I'm not one of those avid pool apnea trainers, but I try to do O2 tables every now and then as a hobby.

This way I can now, pretty comfortable do pool apnea's between 75 and 100 meters depending on the day.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

The best class I took in my diving career so far, aside from my TDI Instructor classes with Steve Lewis, was a basic Freediving Class 3 yrs ago. The instructor was awesome and even after, at the time, 14 years of diving it made a world of difference in many areas. In a half hour of actual practice my static breathhold went from 50 seconds to 2 1/2 minutes. Even though I haven't really be practicing it because of the danger of doing it alone, messing around with a hold around 1 1/2 minutes is nothing.

I know if I got back into it with serious practice and an informed assistant I could get past 3 minutes easily. The 50 yd underwater swim with freediving fins was cake. The only negative was missing my target depth by .5 meters because of a bad tooth that refused to let me go an inch deeper without serious pain.

The breathing technique is not hyperventilating at any time. We were warned over and over again not to do this. Even with proper technique the possibility of shallow water blackout is very real. Fortunately, with good teammates, the results of that can be no more than a bruised ego and maybe some soiled undies. Without good people and practicing the alone, death is pretty much high up on the list of things that can go bad.

Find a good instructor and take the class.

 

[boulderjohn]

So lets say I can travel 60 feet on a breath hold no fins. How does one increase that too say 120 feet without the doing the hyper ventilate thing free divers do?

Consider the premise of the thread--you need to swim 120 feet to get to a buddy so you can share air in an OOA scenario. You will likely be a lot less than 120 feet from the surface, and it's a heck of a lot easier to ascend any distance than to swim that distance horizontally. If I were to go magically OOA at 120 feet deep, I would probably go to the surface with a CESA rather than swim 60 feet to another diver.

John C. Ratliff makes several good points in his response.

If you want to improve breath holding for freediving, that is a good goal, and free diving lessons from an expert will be good.

 

[johndiver999]

Yes it is definitely easier to ascend vertically - especially if your BC has not failed or you are wearing an exposure suit that will be expanding on ascent. Once a diver gets a little positive, they can relax and "ride' passively toward the surface and should be able to vent excess gas on ascent; the difference between floating versus kicking is dramatic.

In addition, think in realistic terms: if you are in very clear water and your buddy is 50 feet away and you are 60 feet deep and your scuba unit completely stops giving you air.

Would it make sense to swim "after" a buddy who is 50 feet away to secure air? What if he starts moving away, unaware that you have a problem? Now you have to swim further and catch him and if/when you get there, you are going to have to secure his regulator - which will be stressful and take time, since you will be on the verge of panic. The whole idea makes little sense for a recreational dive setting when you have the option of ascending.

Bolting for the surface it NOT a good option, but you may only have a few seconds to decide whether it is better to "chase a distant buddy" or head to the surface NOW. It makes sense to think about this scenario before it happens. I have thought about it and I take a pony bottle on most any dive that is past 40-50 feet.

If it happens to me, I will be switching to a pony or securing air from a buddy who happens to be very close to me. I don't like the other scenarios.