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This day the theory was about the physiology of freediving. In the pool we further improved our techniques and practiced some buddy skills.
We talked about oxygen and carbon dioxide and their functions and influence on the body. It might surprise some of you that it is not the lack of oxygen that gives you the “urge to breathe”, but it’s the rising carbon dioxide level in the body that does so. This means it is actually the “urge to exhale”. This also means that you are easily able to prolong your breath-hold from the moment you normally feel that urge, because the oxygen level in your body would still be fine. But remember: never dive alone!
The mammalian diving reflex is fascinating as well. In this interesting TED-talk by Guillaume Néry the starts explaining about the mammalian diving reflex from minute 3:43, but the whole video is cool to watch for anyone even slightly interested in freediving:
What did I tell ya!? Cool, no?
At the pool we started with some static apnea’s, but mainly focused on a proper breathe-up, buddy skills and (of course) the recovery breath. My buddy, Peter, had some troubles with the breathe-up and signals. Since I already did the introduction to the static apnea and he didn’t, I decided to let him practice a bit more. I did no warm-ups and did a breath-hold of 2:20, not really pushing myself. Warm-ups are good to do though, because the first breath hold – to me at least – is always the least comfortable.
After the static apnea’s we geared up to do some dynamic swims, also with focus on the buddy skills. When you buddy a diver who’s doing a dynamic, you need to swim a bit in front of him and on your side so you can make a full kick with the fins on. This way you can keep up with the diver, check on the diver, check if the lane ahead is empty and without obstacles, help the diver when in trouble or when finishing the dive or cut the diver off if so necessary for whatever reason. When the diver surfaces, you (as a buddy) need to stay close and place his (or her) hand on the edge of the pool and do so as near to his head as possible. This way, if there is any loss of motor control (or black-out), you avoid the diver banging his head on the steel or concrete of the edge of the pool.
Nanja (our instructor) was impressed with our progression and the way we picked up the techniques she taught us. This meant we already got to practice some duck-dives:
The pool we practice in is only 3 meters deep, so with a decent duck dive you are at the bottom almost immediately. Even without an armstroke. Eventually I got the hang of it and the speed with which I descended was too fast for me to get my 
equalization in order. Shitballs!
This worried me a bit, since equalizing has been an issue for me, also in scuba-diving. I usually have the most trouble the first couple of meters. After that it’s smooth sailing, at least when scuba-diving. With freediving I have no experience with depth yet and I do feel equalizing will be harder since you are hanging upside down and the descend speed will (probably) be faster. Practice, practice! But only in Dive4Life next week we’ll know if I’ll actually be able do it!
Cheers! Hope you guys liked this post and don’t be shy to comment or ask anything!
a journey from the surface to wherever 