I Tried Freediving With No Experience

Diving over 100 feet deep underwater on just a single breath is something that my professional freediver friends can do no problem. And I've never properly learned how to freedive, so I'm going to be meeting up with some certified professional freedivers at a super deep hidden spring in Florida to answer one question. How deep could I actually go? And this is my new friend who I just met who's going to be teaching me how to freedive, and he kind of looks like Aquaman, so he seems like the right guy for the job. Who am I here with? My name is Devin. Devin Constant. What's the deepest you've ever gone freediving? So my PB or personal best currently is 40 meters. That was more when I was in a bit of a training phase. So relatively deep for sure. So how dangerous really is freediving? There's certainly a risk that is inherited by freediving, but if you look at the numbers, you know scuba diving is statistically more dangerous. So in my opinion, not relying on you know equipment to be your lifeline, I find to be a bit safer. I think there's inherited risks like with anything. You know your safety mechanism is your own peace of mind and your own breath. So when you're 120 feet deep underwater, what happens to your body when you're that deep underwater? Because a lot of people they think you just explode because the pressure. So what actually happens? The reality is such that the air in your lungs is actually so compressed By the time you're at about 30 meters, it's your lungs are roughly the volume of your two fists and then so roughly deeper than that So I've been told they actually start to fill with blood plasma to protect them from essentially imploding on themselves But interestingly enough, you know the calm you find down there is unlike anything else. It's my first real freediving session How deep do you think I'll be able to go? I honestly think you'll be able to get down to 30 feet if I were to teach you a couple things here What if I wanted to do 50 feet is that? It's certainly possible. I mean, if you have any experience in having equalized before or at least, you know, are comfortable in the water, I think your odds are pretty good, honestly. we'll find out and as you'll see later in the video i was underestimating myself because i ended up going a lot deeper than i thought i would and along with devin i also have tiffany brie and ray helping me out and they can all dive a hundred feet deep so i think i'm in good hands but then once i got in the water i spent about the first hour learning the proper techniques for equalizing the pressure in my ears underwater and there's a couple of different methods for this but i chose the easiest one which is to just pinch your nose and blow and then i also learned how to do what is called a duck dive which is how you propel yourself down into the dive and as i was As I was doing all this, I was watching the other divers seemingly disappear into the deep as they dove into this underwater cave, which at its lowest point is well over a hundred feet deep. But now that I had the basics down pretty well, I was ready to go deeper. And I started by diving on the line because pulling yourself down with your arms uses less oxygen than kicking with your legs. And I was feeling really good, although I hit my head a little bit on the way up and that's not the only time I'll do that. So on the next dive, I went again on the line, but this time going a little deeper and making sure I can equalize my ears the whole way down with no problems. At this point this was already about the deepest I've ever gone underwater and although it was a little scary thinking about how far I am below the surface and that I still have to go back up too, I began to feel way more confident in myself that I could go deep. So next I did one final practice dive without the line and with this I was quickly getting the hang of it so now I was feeling ready to start really pushing myself considering I was able to equalize perfectly fine and I had four professional freedivers right there in the water with me which made me feel a lot more comfortable knowing that they're right there just in case anything goes wrong. With my first deeper dive, I was already starting to get kind of close to my original goal of 50 feet, and I was still feeling really good at this depth, so I decided to swim through this little hole on the way back up, and Tiffany followed right behind me with the camera. So on the next dive, I decided to push myself a little deeper, but this time something interesting happened. As I was turning around, I noticed how extremely calm I felt underwater, just like Devin was talking about earlier. But that didn't last for very long because after just a few seconds, I hit my head again. And as I was resurfacing, I almost did it a third time. But despite hitting my head on the rock, I was now feeling confident enough to go for my original goal, 50 feet. I gotta watch out for those tombs. So I took a moment to reset. However, what you don't see is that in between each dive, as I'm resting at the surface, I'm getting swarmed by horseflies. I mean, as long as they're not biting through the wetsuit. But then when I was ready, Tiffany and Bree went down before me, and then I started my descent after them. Being this deep underwater, it almost felt like time slowed down, and as I reached the 50 foot mark, I was looking down at the bottom, which is 74 feet deep. And in that moment, I set a new goal. I wasn't going to leave here until I touched the bottom, so I started heading back up to the surface and swam through the hole again on the way. And then I began preparing myself to attempt this 74 foot dive all the way down to the bottom. And I was doing that by using this special breathing technique that Devin taught me earlier when I asked him this important question. What should you not do? When freediving. That's a great question to ask and I actually was eager enough to jump the gun on it. Do not do the Wim Hof. You will certainly increase that risk that we talked about. What you effectively want to do is start to tolerate yourself to CO2 and acclimate to that, right? So one of the rules of thumb, everyone's got a different opinion, is effectively the 10 and 2. Or I do what's called kind of a 2 and 8. So a two second kind of more rapid inhale with a prolonged exhale. you know roughly three to four times what that inhale you know duration was. And then after a few minutes of doing this breathing technique to slow down my heart rate and calm myself, I decided I was ready so I went for it. As I was approaching 60 feet, I really started to feel the pressure on my body, especially in my chest because at this depth your lungs are compressed to about 1 third of their original size. And thinking about how deep I was underwater, it all started to get to my head. However, on the swim back up, I realized that I was perfectly fine. So after failing the first attempt, I resurfaced and took a while to prepare myself both mentally and physically for the dive to the bottom, mostly mentally, and I was also warned not to turn my neck too hard that deep underwater or else I could potentially get something trachea squeeze due to the pressure so yeah that didn't really help boost my confidence but after a few minutes I was finally ready enough so I took one final breath and began my descent to the bottom. It doesn't count. In the water a couple effective maneuvers as far as equalization. So my ears don't blow up. Exactly.