Freediving Breathe Up and How to Breathe for Freediving hold your breath longer

Hey freediving family, I'm Adam Stern, Australian freediving record holder and today I'm going to show you how to breathe for freediving and for breath holds in general. How to breathe up? The breathe up is what we call the breathing that you do before a breath hold. It's the most important safety information that there is and that also means that having the wrong ideas about breathing for freediving or having misconceptions about it is the most potentially dangerous thing for us as divers. You want to make sure that you have this right. So if you intend to use the information in this video I'm asking you to watch it to the end so you make sure you have all the knowledge. I don't care if it's a long video, I don't care if you get bored, finish the video so you know how to dive safe. We're going to start with a quick conversation about physiology because it's essential for understanding how to breathe for freediving. Now I'm going to talk about some incredibly complex processes in the body in a very simple way because all that we really need to do is understand how these things apply to us as freedivers or breath holders of any kind. Okay from the beginning I take a breath in and the gas from the atmosphere which is roughly 79% nitrogen and 21% oxygen makes its way down into my lungs. It passes down the bronchial tree until it filters down to my alveoli which are the smallest parts of my lungs and where the actual oxygen exchange takes place. That's where the oxygen moves from my lungs into my bloodstream. Haemoglobin which is a protein in our red blood cells picks up the oxygen molecule and then the red blood cell with its new friend that little bit of oxygen is shot out through my arteries to my body's extremities. Now almost all of the food that I eat eventually breaks itself down into some form of a sugar or a glucose and then the oxygen molecule which has been transported to almost every part of my body crashes into and breaks down those glucose molecules and as they do that an energy is created in the form of ATP which is what our bodies use to power themselves. That's basically the engine of our body. The air that we breathe crashing into and breaking down the food that we eat. That is a very simple explanation for a very complex process. So as a byproduct of this biochemical reaction our bodies create two main things. They create water which isn't a problem for us because our bodies are 60% water. I mean we're basically cucumbers with anxiety but our bodies also create carbon dioxide or CO2. Now CO2 serves many functions in the body many of which are not fully understood but it is also toxic for our body in high quantities so our body does want to get rid of it. So CO2 is mostly then dissolved in our blood plasma and it makes its way back to our lungs through our veins to be exchanged with fresh oxygen and then we exhale the CO2. So we inhale oxygen or O2, we utilize that O2, we create CO2 as a byproduct and then we exhale that CO2. That's the simple explanation but a big factor for us when we're holding our breath is that we don't allow ourselves to exhale that CO2 and so our body builds it up. Okay now I'm going to explain how all this is relevant for breath holds. I'm going to use this graph to explain it. This line across signifies time, this line refers to our O2 levels and this line refers to our CO2 levels. Now we always start our dives with more or less 100% oxygen. After a dive or after a breath hold it takes usually less but let's just say it takes around 30 seconds to completely replenish your oxygen stores. So you're always starting your dives with more or less 100% oxygen and then as you hold your breath your oxygen is used until you no longer have sufficient oxygen to maintain normal bodily function and right there you black out. If you want any more description on blackouts and rescuing a blackout check out my video on that. I've put the link in the description down below. Now where you start your breath holds with 100% oxygen you can start your breath holds with whatever amount of CO2 that you like because the more that you breathe before a dive the more CO2 that you actually exhale or better yet the greater volume of gas that is exchanged in and out of your lungs is the greater volume of gas that CO2 can mix into and escape with. Let's say you start your dive with a good amount of CO2, the recommended amount. In the untrained diver at roughly 25 to 35 percent of the way through your body's maximal breath hold time as in the point in time which you're going to black out. That's when you get what is usually described as the urge to breathe and you start getting involuntary contractions in your respiratory muscles. Your body is trying to force you to exhale all that CO2 which is why in a breath hold we feel the relief when we exhale and not when we start to inhale or when we start to breathe again. The reason I don't like when this is called the urge to breathe is because we don't actually get this when our bodies need to respirate or they need oxygen. We get this feeling from a high quantity of CO2 when our body wants to exhale. Now the average untrained diver if they're relaxed can perform a static breath hold of around four to five minutes. You will experience a lot of discomfort if you hold your breath for that long but the human body can do it. If we breathe correctly that diver will get their urge to breathe, not that I like that term, at around 25 to 35 percent of the way through that maximum breath hold time. Now keeping in mind these are very averaged rounded out figures so you may or may not fit into them but if we were to hyperventilate to breathe more or to breathe heavier before our breath holds we would flush out the CO2 from our body and it would take us a longer period of time for us to build enough CO2 in our body to give us that desire to exhale or the urge to breathe. Now that sounds quite good doesn't it? The only issue is that the bore effect would not be engaged which I'll explain in a moment and you would therefore black out significantly earlier. Almost every story I ever heard about blacking out during recreational freediving went like this. I didn't know what happened I was feeling so good. Of course you were feeling good because you hyperventilated you didn't get any urge to breathe and you blacked out early. So why do we black out early if we do hyperventilate? I'll explain that just after this quick interlude. So far I haven't actually made any videos in which I talk about the core theory components or the core concepts that I would usually cover on a freediving course. I've put out many videos that would help divers of any level but I haven't put out videos that would supersede or take the place of a freediving course. This video is a little bit different because I worry that some people after watching this will feel like they don't need to take a course. But watching a very short video on YouTube does not give you all the information and experience that you would get if you were to take a freediving course and you don't get to work with an instructor because I mean I'll reply to you guys in the comments but that's about all I can offer you right? And working with an instructor is the most important thing. The human body is so different and varied that what you need is individual answers based on your dives not generic answers from watching a video. So it's actually my hope that these videos inspire you guys to go out there and take a course and to start your journey into freediving properly. Or if you have taken a course this is a different view on things or perhaps a refresher. Also the world is not fair and I receive messages every single day from people who will just never be able to afford a freediving course and so at least for me this video is for you. This video is for everyone out there who simply cannot afford a freediving course and I'm sorry that I can't offer you more but this is all I've got to offer you right now. This video. We black out early if we hyperventilate because of the bore effect. Now this is going to be an extremely oversimplified version of what's actually going on here. The amount of CO2 in your body dictates how quickly the hemoglobin will release the oxygen molecules from your red blood cells and therefore allow those oxygen molecules to be utilized in the tissues. When we hyperventilate those oxygen molecules for the most part stay attached to the red blood cells and they don't get used at all. So the very simple rule the more CO2 you have in your body the longer you can hold your breath. The more CO2 you have in your body the earlier you'll get the urge to breathe the more uncomfortable you're going to feel but the longer you can hold your breath. Okay so now that that's clear how should we be breathing before our dives? What is hyperventilation? So when we're at rest sitting down or laying down we do something that's called tidal breathing. Once again these are grossly oversimplified average figures but we inhale and exhale roughly 15 times per minute and we inhale and exhale roughly 500 mils or half a litre of air per breath. That means that in one minute we will exchange inhale and exhale 7.5 litres of air. So inhaling and exhaling 7.5 litres of air per minute before your dives allows you to start your dive with that perfect amount of CO2 that gives you your urge to breathe at the right time or the time that you're going to want it and allows you to be able to hold your breath for your body's maximal breath hold time. Try not to think of hyperventilation as just fast breathing or heavy breathing. Think of hyperventilation as a volume of gas that is exchanged over a period of time. I should make an equation for this. In free diving if we inhale and exhale more gas than our body typically would when we are tidal breathing then that is hyperventilation. Good! So now we understand what hyperventilation is but how do we breathe up for a dive? What breathing do we do in preparation for a breath hold? There are a thousand ways to breathe up. Every different free diver will have their own breathe up. Every different free diving instructor will usually teach some varied form of a breathe up but the one that I'm going to show you today is where we double the length of our exhale compared to our inhale. The time frame that we operate around is a five second inhale and a ten second exhale. What volume of gas do we breathe for each one of those breaths? I'm going to skip over a long complex conversation about lung volumes right now and just say that if we only want to exchange no more than 7.5 liters of air per minute then we need to be breathing, inhaling and exhaling no more than half of our vital capacity or taking no more than half of a full breath. Ideally you should be breathing into your stomach or doing diaphragmatic breathing. So guys make sure you have something to time yourself with and in a moment I'm going to ask you to pause this video because you're going to be breathing for two minutes doing a five second inhale and a ten second exhale. Alright let's do that now for two minutes. Pause the video. While you're doing that I'm going to go and cuddle my dogs. Puppies! Puppies what's going on? Oh Arthur baby boy why are you howling? Kiss kiss kiss kiss. Give me a kiss. Give me a kiss. Hello Arthur. Arthur kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss. Did you feel any desire to breathe at all at the end of those long exhales or did you feel any desire to take a normal breath? The thing is is that everyone has a different natural tolerance to carbon dioxide and so if you were feeling a slight urge to breathe or a desire to breathe normally at the end of those exhales then what I'm going to recommend that you do shorten your breath up to a four second inhale and an eight second exhale and also everyone please ignore the fact that the sun has just come out and this is not a high quality studio. Did anybody feel dizzy or lightheaded at the end of their two minutes of breathing? Dizziness or lightheadedness is the primary symptom of hyperventilation. Just as everyone has a different natural tolerance to CO2 everyone also has a different natural sensitivity to hyperventilation. I have a friend who breathes five in ten out and for his body that is extreme hyperventilation. He blacks out incredibly early. So if you did feel any dizziness or lightheadedness what I'm going to recommend that you do is that you do a six second inhale and a 12 second exhale. Everybody's body is so different that we can't have one standard or general breathe up for everyone. What we're trying to do is find an individual breathe up that works for you. So that's actually your breathe up. For one or two minutes before your dive or however long it takes you to get relaxed you're going to breathe like that. Your own personal breathe up and then you're going to take one and I do mean one normal breath and then take your final breath. Fill right up. I'll demonstrate for you. Now just pretend I've been doing that for like two minutes and I'm gonna go full full full full full full full. Then after every dive you recovery breathe. I won't go into recovery breathing today that is a topic for another video. Guys if you're new here and this was helpful then subscribe. If you want to help me create a stronger global freediving community then share this video around make sure that your dive buddies see it. I have heaps of other freediving tutorials just click or tap here or if you want to have a look at some of my other freediving adventures and trips that I've been on click or tap here. As always I'll be answering all questions in the comments. I'll see you in the water somewhere. I'm Adam Stern. I hold my breath and dive really deep.