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Scuba Forum / General / July 2007Breath Holding Exercises
Hello group, Thanks to all who answered my regulator failure question. A lot of experience in this group. My question today regards exercises for breath holding. I have gradually worked up from 30 seconds to 2 minutes by staying cardiovascularly fit and by doing sets of breath hold exercises. Does anyone else do any breath control exercises of any kind? Thanks again in advance. > My question today regards exercises for breath holding. I have gradually > worked up from 30 seconds to 2 minutes by staying cardiovascularly fit and > by doing sets of breath hold exercises. Does anyone else do any breath > control exercises of any kind? Not any more. I presume that I'm not the only one here that got into this sport first by snorkeling and then by breath hold diving. When I was younger, I was both fit and very active. I never did anything specifically for the purpose of extending the time I could hold my breath except learning to relax. The more active you are, above or below the water, the faster you are likely to burn oxygen and the quicker you will build carbon dioxide, the primary trigger for the need to breathe again. While current opinion generally recommends against it, I hyperventilated before descending. It was not unusual for me to remain underwater for 2 minutes or more. I did not normally descend to depths below about 50 feet, but I could remain at those depths long enough to be interesting. When I was able to get my hands on scuba equipment and get a bit of instruction, back in 1962, I jumped at the chance. Since then, I've not done much breath hold diving deeper than 15 - 20 feet except occasionally between scuba dives, something else that's no longer looked on favorably. I still occasionally hunt lobster and bay scallops without scuba, but only in shallow water, generally less than 10 feet. I quit deeper breath hold diving probably 10 - 15 years ago when I started having reverse block ear clearing problems. This isn't much of an issue on scuba, which allows you to slow or even halt your ascent while your ears adjust, but it's a major problem for breath hold diving, which pretty much requires you to surface rapidly despite possible ear damage. A reverse block is not something you can ignore, even if you wanted to. It can be very painful. Lee >> My question today regards exercises for breath holding. I have gradually >> worked up from 30 seconds to 2 minutes by staying cardiovascularly fit and [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > >Lee I would point out that there is no scuba training school that I am aware of that teaches you to hold your breath on scuba. It is specifically taught that you should NEVER hold your breath on scuba but you should keep your airway open at all times. You risk embolism if you hold your breath and ascend from a scuba-fed air supply. If lower air consumption is the goal, aerobic/cardio exercise is recommended and a relaxed attitude is key. Good buoyancy control and proper weight distribution will promote lower air usage and reduce tension. > I would point out that there is no scuba training school that I am aware > of that teaches you to hold your breath on scuba. It is specifically [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > from > a scuba-fed air supply. I've always found it interesting to note that the lesson is "never hold your breath on scuba" while the risk is specifically a significant ascent while holding your breath, significant being specific to the starting depth. As Dan Bracuk pointed out to me when he was down here. pretty much all divers that use breathing patterns to help control buoyancy, hold their breath for at least short periods to initiate an ascend or descent. The trick is not to breathe continously, but to avoid holding your breath for too long, at the wrong time. > If lower air consumption is the goal, aerobic/cardio exercise is > recommended > and a relaxed attitude is key. Good buoyancy control and proper weight > distribution will promote lower air usage and reduce tension. Yep. to put it more clearly, holding your breath is not a practice that promotes low gas consumption. To the contrary, it's much more likely to increase it. Lee >I've always found it interesting to note that the lesson is "never hold your >breath on scuba" while the risk is specifically a significant ascent while [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >breathe continously, but to avoid holding your breath for too long, at the >wrong time. Agreed. I frequently use breathing to control buoyancy, I think it can't be avoided since it is such a significant factor. I think breath control is a necessary component of good buoyancy control. Being somewhat barrel chested myself, I frequently use lung air volume to alternate between negative and positive buoyancy. Very handy on a wall dive. I typically find myself exhaling on initial descent from the surface. I think the critical factor here is closing the glottis instinctively as you might on a free dive. Definitely not something you should do on ascent or where you are rising in the column. I think breath holding "exercises" shouldn't be practiced with a closed glottis since it might develop into a habit that could lead to bad practices while scuba diving. "Geoff" <geoff@invalid.invalid> wrote> Agreed. I frequently use breathing to control buoyancy, I think it can't be > avoided since it is such a significant factor. I think breath control is a > necessary component of good buoyancy control. Being somewhat barrel [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > might > develop into a habit that could lead to bad practices while scuba diving. Actually, even that's not a big deal during the majority of a dive. Keep in mind that the percentage change over the range of the ascent, which is the key to problems, is much smaller at depth than near the surface. Lee > I would point out that there is no scuba training school that I am aware > of that teaches you to hold your breath on scuba. It is specifically taught [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > and a relaxed attitude is key. Good buoyancy control and proper weight > distribution will promote lower air usage and reduce tension. There is one part of the course that required you to hold your breath (Well Padi at least). £5 to the first to work it out! >> I would point out that there is no scuba training school that I am aware >> of that teaches you to hold your breath on scuba. It is specifically taught [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >(Well Padi at least). >£5 to the first to work it out! Would it be the 2nd pool dive for Open Water diver? There was a surface swim distance test and an underwater swim test. Underwater distance was 10 meters when I took it, IIRC. Neither of them are performed with scuba equipment. They are more for establishing thresholds for minimal diver fitness than training any scuba skills. These elements are a psychological test of your comfort level in the water as well. When I took the course there were 2 divers who swallowed a little water in the pool doing the OoA exercises who both sprinted for the surface. One washed herself out, the other went on with some additional one-on-one training with the instructors. > There is one part of the course that required you to hold your breath > (Well Padi at least). > £5 to the first to work it out! I know, it was when the instructor said "our way is the only way." You had to hold your breath to keep from saying what you were thinking, or should have been thinking. I'd rather have 5 Euros. I already have a £5 note. Lee >> There is one part of the course that required you to hold your breath >> (Well Padi at least). [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > Lee ;-) Nah, the test for correct weighting "Reg In, Hold a lung full of air and let all air out of BCD, you should float at eye level" Guaranteed, every course someone helpfully points out that we have been telling them never to hold their breath and why was this any different. Doh <doh@microsoft.com> pounded away at his keyboard resulting in: :Nah, the test for correct weighting :"Reg In, Hold a lung full of air and let all air out of BCD, you should :float at eye level" Eye level my eye. Do you add weight if you float at nose level? And what's this lung full of air nonsense? My method is easier. With a near empty tank, at the surface, figure out the minimum amount of weight that enables you to sink when you exhale. Dan Bracuk Never use a big word when a diminutive one will do. >Doh <doh@microsoft.com> pounded away at his keyboard resulting in: >:Nah, the test for correct weighting [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >out the minimum amount of weight that enables you to sink when you >exhale. No, it's better, but it's not easier. 1. It requires that you have a near-empty tank. That may well not be available until the end of the dive. 2. Even if it is available, it means you then need to change to a full tank before actually doing the dive. You can conveniently use this method to refine your weighting at the end of the dive, after having used the former method to get into the correct ballpark.  SignatureRon (user ron in domain spamblocked.com) > No, it's better, but it's not easier. > 1. It requires that you have a near-empty tank. That may well > not be available until the end of the dive. There's an end to ever dive, and a beginning to the next one. Empty tanks are often more abundant than full ones. > 2. Even if it is available, it means you then need to change > to a full tank before actually doing the dive. We're talking training. That's not a problem. > You can conveniently use this method to refine your weighting > at the end of the dive, after having used the former method to > get into the correct ballpark. Or you can do what everyone else does, dive overweighted until you get around to refining it. Lee > Empty tanks are often more abundant than full ones. Thanks to some idiocy of my local power company, I have a few more really empty tanks tonight... I ended up having to use an air powered cutoff tool hooked up to run off some of my tanks that probably had about 1000 psi left in each to cut off the meter ring on my electric meter this evening so that I could turn the power back on at my house... We have it setup so that the power company (National Power Company) can automatically deduct our monthly bill directly from our checking account... They had my service disconnected this morning, claiming non-payment... Looking at my bank's transactions, we were able to show them that they had withdrawn the money... Eventually, they agreed that it appears that they had withdrawn the money, but they couldn't find any record of it actually being received... They said that they would turn in a request for the power to be turned on and it should happen by 21:00... After contacting CenterPoint Energy this evening to ensure they were going to be able to do it so that I would know whether I needed to move all my SEMI-frozen foods to the refrigerator at my hangar, they said that they would not be able to send someone by to do it today... I said that since my meter was still here, they must have a computer controlled system that can do it from their end without anyone coming by... They said that actually the person puts a couple of plastic insulators over the meter prongs instead of removing the meter like they used to many years ago... I then thanked them for giving me the necessary information for me to be able to reconnect it myself... I tried picking the lock with a screwdriver for quite awhile, but no luck... Eventually, as it was getting dark, I decided that a non-destructive technique was not going to work... I had thought about hooking up an inverter to my truck and running a dremel tool to cut off the ring, but I couldn't find the necessary bit for the dremel tool... On the other hand, I did have the air powered cutoff tool that normally runs on my shop compressor... Since most of my tanks needed refilling before the next dive anyway and since we don't pay any less for partial fills around here, I decided to empty the remaining 1000 psi or so out of each tank that was leftover from the latest SoFL dive trip... A rather destructive endeavor with regards to what the locking ring looked like afterwards, but the end result is that I'm now sitting in an air-conditioned house with my computers running and the food in my freezer and refrigerator is back frozen... At the worst, they'll charge me for the lock, but that's cheap compared to the amount of food that might have been ruined... I think that this proves that sometimes you don't want to store your tanks empty... Oh, they got pretty damn cold with all that air being drained for them... They were soaking wet from all the humidity condensing on them... You have grounds for suit. Hire a lawyer and make them bleed. > > Empty tanks are often more abundant than full ones. > [quoted text clipped - 45 lines] > them... They were soaking wet from all the humidity condensing on > them... > You have grounds for suit. > > Hire a lawyer and make them bleed. Probably not worth the trouble... One of Grace's friends had a similar situation on Thanksgiving weekend... They claimed that they had not received her payment and turned off her electricity on what was a fairly cold weekend and she had company over for Thanksgiving dinner... She was pissed off enough that she was willing to pay the penalty for breaking her service agreement contract early... I guess one of the problems with deregulation of electricity is that you sometimes get companies like National Power Company who are just totally screwed up in the way that they operate... Luckily, they're not the ones who are actually supplying the electricity to the houses or we would probably all have to invest in natural gas powered backup generators for our houses... >> You have grounds for suit. >> [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] >or we would probably all have to invest in natural gas powered backup >generators for our houses... Whatdoyamean "her breaking the contract". This is a contract that was already broken by the other party. Her TERMINATING it on those grounds have nothing to do with penalties. Actually, this legal point (termination of contracts because of non-delivery by the other party) is the legal clause with the largest number of lawsuits in the entire world, it even beats "Violence against civil servant". -- mrr > Whatdoyamean "her breaking the contract". This is a contract that > was already broken by the other party. Her TERMINATING it on those [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > number of lawsuits in the entire world, it even beats "Violence against > civil servant". <cough> > Actually, this legal point (termination of contracts because of > non-delivery by the other party) is the legal clause with the largest > number of lawsuits in the entire world, it even beats "Violence against > civil servant". Is that what they call it with a postal worker 'goes postal' and starts shooting his co-workers? > You have grounds for suit. > > Hire a lawyer and make them bleed. The line guy just came by... He yanked the meter to ensure that I hadn't modified / shunted it in an attempt to get free electricity... Of course, he doesn't inform me of this, so all my computers go down... OK, not *all* since my laptop just continued to run on batteries, but my cable modem and such went down... I went outside and explained how NPC had screwed up and why I had to cut their lock to keep the food in my freezer from ruining... He said it was no problem, he just needed to ensure that nothing had been modified on the meter... As I had suspected, they keep a good supply of the locks on their truck anyway... > > You have grounds for suit. > > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > meter... As I had suspected, they keep a good supply of the locks on > their truck anyway... This is why you need to get your daughter a dog... > This is why you need to get your daughter a dog... The meter is on the other side of the electric fence... Regardless, he just wagged his tail and smiled at the meter guy... No loyalty whatsoever... > > This is why you need to get your daughter a dog... > > The meter is on the other side of the electric fence... Regardless, he > just wagged his tail and smiled at the meter guy... No loyalty > whatsoever... May I suggest an Akita? http://www.lonestarakitaclub.org/rescue.htm http://www.akitanetwork.com/Rescue/rescues.htm http://www.doggies.com/Akita/Louisiana >> This is why you need to get your daughter a dog... > > The meter is on the other side of the electric fence... Regardless, he > just wagged his tail and smiled at the meter guy... No loyalty > whatsoever... It's the power of cookies. Some contracters used that one while working on my house. The dogs were standing in the corner on the yard looking very guilty. >> Empty tanks are often more abundant than full ones. > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >claiming non-payment... Looking at my bank's transactions, we were >able to show them that they had withdrawn the money... Eventually, .. if this is correct it is nothing short of fraud. You may want to file a police report. >they agreed that it appears that they had withdrawn the money, but >they couldn't find any record of it actually being received... They [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] >that's cheap compared to the amount of food that might have been >ruined... Or, then, you may write that report, and tell whoever complains that it will be filed immediatly if they give you any hassle whatsoever. This has all the sounds of an exchange that is going to get ugly. >I think that this proves that sometimes you don't want to store your >tanks empty... > >Oh, they got pretty damn cold with all that air being drained for >them... They were soaking wet from all the humidity condensing on >them... Now you get to see how good air fills you have had, and if there is any internal condensation. There shoudln't be any. -- mrr > Now you get to see how good air fills you have had, and if there > is any internal condensation. > > There shoudln't be any. They're not *completely* empty... There's probably 100 psi left in them... They're down below the IP of the regulator since the cutoff tool was starting to slow down... > > Now you get to see how good air fills you have had, and if there > > is any internal condensation. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > them... They're down below the IP of the regulator since the cutoff > tool was starting to slow down... I think he meant that he hopes the fills were good so that your air equipment (cut off tool) doesn't have condensation in it. I'm thinking it's probably not a problem. > :Nah, the test for correct weighting > :"Reg In, Hold a lung full of air and let all air out of BCD, you should > :float at eye level" > Eye level my eye. Do you add weight if you float at nose level? And > what's this lung full of air nonsense? > > My method is easier. With a near empty tank, at the surface, figure > out the minimum amount of weight that enables you to sink when you > exhale. Dan for president of PADI. I actually do/did this exercise a few inches below the surface, allowing me not only to determine the minimum weight that allows me to sink, but also determining the specific amount that allows me not to sink as well. >>> There is one part of the course that required you to hold your breath >>> (Well Padi at least). [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >> >> I'd rather have 5 Euros. I already have a £5 note. > Nah, the test for correct weighting > "Reg In, Hold a lung full of air and let all air out of BCD, you should > float at eye level" From the new divers coming out of the various programs, I haven't noticed that PADI, or anyone else, is doing much in the way of training for correct weighting. Perhaps it's unique to the UK. I like my answer better. > Guaranteed, every course someone helpfully points out that we have been > telling them never to hold their breath and why was this any different. As they should. Perhaps it's really an exercise in effective independent thinking, something PADI doesn't seem to encourage otherwise. Lee > I would point out that there is no scuba training school that I am aware > of that teaches you to hold your breath on scuba. It is specifically taught > that you should NEVER hold your breath on scuba but you should keep your airway > open at all times. You risk embolism if you hold your breath and ascend from > a scuba-fed air supply. If something goes wrong and I can't get air, the ability to remain calm will be based on how long I can comfortably hold my breath. >> I would point out that there is no scuba training school that I am aware >> of that teaches you to hold your breath on scuba. It is specifically taught [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > If something goes wrong and I can't get air, the ability to remain calm > will be based on how long I can comfortably hold my breath. Darwin. >> I would point out that there is no scuba training school that I am aware >> of that teaches you to hold your breath on scuba. It is specifically [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > If something goes wrong and I can't get air, the ability to remain calm > will be based on how long I can comfortably hold my breath. Learn how to breath your LPI oral inflator- You've got nitrox in your wing- why waste it? Plus, you can re-breath the same gas several times- And you can exercise your lungs, and stave off panic. For reasons that utterly escape me, most divers simply refuse to even consider this, much less practice it. Signature"I wasn't going to get into any of this until later, but you asked a reasonable question. The problem for me in answering is that I'm theorizing with more intuited logic than facts." -JOF Popeye/ www.finalprotectivefire.com >>> I would point out that there is no scuba training school that I am >>> aware of that teaches you to hold your breath on scuba. It is [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > For reasons that utterly escape me, most divers simply refuse to even > consider this, much less practice it. And last, on ascent there is alway a bit of expanding air in the mask, which not to breathe would be a waste. Matthias > And last, on ascent there is alway a bit of expanding air in > the mask, which not to breathe would be a waste. Or you can stab another diver in the chest when they're not looking and then jam a snorkle through the hole. On Jul 18, 8:18 am, "Douglas W. \"Popeye\" Frederick" <Pop...@finalprotectivefire.com> wrote: > Learn how to breath your LPI oral inflator- > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > -- Probably depends a bit on where you dive. Warm water divers wearing very thin or no wetsuits, if they are properly weighted in the first place, should have little or no air (or nitrox) in their BCs, even at depth. Cold water divers wearing thick wetsuits or dry suits may have lots of air available. gc > On Jul 18, 8:18 am, "Douglas W. \"Popeye\" Frederick" > <Pop...@finalprotectivefire.com> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > gc Signature"I wasn't going to get into any of this until later, but you asked a reasonable question. The problem for me in answering is that I'm theorizing with more intuited logic than facts." -JOF Popeye/ www.finalprotectivefire.com > On Jul 18, 8:18 am, "Douglas W. \"Popeye\" Frederick" > <Pop...@finalprotectivefire.com> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > gc Hookus. At any rate, even the volume of your corrugated LPI tube will afford a breath or two, and the ability to exercise your lungs. You can re-breath the same gas several times before its O2 content is exhausted. Signature"I wasn't going to get into any of this until later, but you asked a reasonable question. The problem for me in answering is that I'm theorizing with more intuited logic than facts." -JOF Popeye/ www.finalprotectivefire.com > If something goes wrong and I can't get air, the ability to remain calm > will be based on how long I can comfortably hold my breath. Resolve the situation first, worry about calm later. Something few new divers, or even not so new divers who have not run out of gas, understand is that you don't normally discover you are out of gas when you have a lung full of it. You find out when you have breathed out and can't breathe in again. You ability to hold your breath with near empty lungs is very different from your ability to hold your breath with them full. > Hello group, > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > and by doing sets of breath hold exercises. Does anyone else do any > breath control exercises of any kind? No. Closing your glottis on a breath of compressed air can be a BAD idea. > Thanks again in advance. On Jul 17, 7:38 am, nos...@all.please.net wrote: > > Hello group, > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > No. Closing your glottis on a breath of compressed air can be a BAD idea. Huh? There's nothing wrong with holding your breath on SCUBA, provided you're not ascending too much. I do it all the time, as do all photographers/videographers and anyone who uses their lungs for buoyancy control.
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