Share this on
In the first part of this series, I covered a few common misconceptions about the sport of freediving. Let's now look at some more.
If you've ever seen a blackout compilation video or footage of a freediver coming up from a dive, you may think “that looks so painful and traumatizing! Why would anyone freedive if that is a potential consequence?” Well, to answer this question, we need to know what a blackout actually is.
In freediving, a blackout is a loss of consciousness due to insufficient levels of oxygen in your body (not a traumatic brain injury as you would see in boxing, for example.) Some of the signs of an impending blackout are erratic movements (known as a loss of motor control or a samba,) sudden changes in direction, and changes in the color of the face, to name a few. A blackout is actually the body's response to preserve any remaining oxygen for vital organs. It's a survival response!
The blackout itself is often described as quite peaceful and typically a diver doesn't remember her or his own blackout after it's happened. In fact, some blacked-out freedivers return to consciousness smiling and even think they completed their dives! That said, if you ever experience a blackout, it is imperative that you stop diving for the rest of the day, go visit a doctor, and spend a few days resting and recovering, depending on the severity.
So is a blackout painful? Short answer, no. But that doesn’t mean you ever want to experience one. It is important to note that some of the world's best freedivers have never blacked out, so it is not “a part of becoming a world-class freediver.”
I am often approached with the question “freediving? What is that? Is that some new sport?” Freediving is not as new and certainly much more practical than many believe it to be. The oldest archeological evidence of freediving is on the coast of the Baltic Sea, approximately seven to ten thousand years ago around the coasts of Denmark and southern Sweden. It is thought that the people there would hunt for crayfish and were knowledgeable and experienced freedivers. They used freediving to aid their survival in activities such as hunting for seafood and gathering underwater materials.
All across the world, we can see how freediving has played a huge role in many communities dating back thousands of years ago. The female ‘Ama’ divers in Japan hunt for seafood and pearls, Polynesian pearl hunters, the Haenyeo of Korea, lobster hunters on Caicos island, and the Bajau people from the Philippine islands.
In modern times, freediving international competitions have been taking place for almost 30 years! Freediving first became a competitive sport during the 1980s in the former USSR and was first seen at the international level in 1993. So, even though competitive freediving is recently new, the art of freediving is far older than many people realize. However, we are still learning a lot about apnea training and the human body's response to depth every year!
I most often get the question “how deep can you dive?” That question is then immediately followed with “how long can you hold your breath?” To many people, it seems like there should be a correlation between the two: the longer you can hold your breath, the deeper you can dive, right?
It makes sense that a correlation would be drawn between static apnea (surface breath-hold) and deep diving. But the truth is, just because you have a strong breath hold does not mean that you are able to dive deep. This is because there are a lot more factors than a good breath hold that you will need to learn before you can really go deep. The other factors that can limit a freediver's depth are pressure, equalization, relaxation, technique, urge to breath, and air management past residual volume (the mouthfill).
So does that mean the static practice isn't valuable? No, it can have many benefits! Static can help you gain confidence with your breath hold, learn where your body holds the most tension, familiarize yourself with the effect apnea has on the body, CO2 training, and mental training. Therefore, static is a great tool to use, but most divers encounter blocks in chasing depth before they can even use the full potential of their breath-hold.
If you have been following any of the world championships in the last few years, you may have heard the term narcosis thrown around when talking about deep divers. Narcosis is caused by a buildup of nitrogen in our bodies. Nitrogen, at high partial pressures, can have an anesthetic effect on a diver, which affects their consciousness. Symptoms include euphoria, the feeling of drunkenness, and mild hallucinations. Now, reading this it may sound like a recipe for disaster to be narked at depth, but that isn’t necessarily the case.
The first thing to understand is that narcosis in freediving is not the same in scuba diving, mainly because in scuba you are staying at depth much longer. But to get proper nitrogen narcosis at depth, the majority of freedivers are going to 80 meters and deeper. You can also experience narcosis if you do hangs (holding on to the bottom of the line) at deeper depths (50m-60m). Of course, every diver is different and has their own responses to apnea at depth. So to worry about narcosis means that you are diving at a very high level, are prepared for the narcosis, and know the limits of your own diving.
It is also important to note that this is exactly why we adopt a slow and gradual approach to diving depths. While training, we progress little by little and get used to the different feelings our bodies experience when we dive. The buildup of pressure, the feeling of lactic acid, and the feelings of narcosis. These sensations are all easier to deal with when we are slowly progressing our experience with them instead of simply jumping 10m in depth and finding ourselves feeling overwhelmed and out of our comfort zone.
So does narcosis make you feel bad? Well, it depends! The majority of deep divers actually enjoy being slightly narced on deep dives. Because professional divers have progressed and repeated the same dives countless times, they are typically on autopilot for the duration of their dives. So, an onset of narcosis can often make a physically and mentally challenging ascent more enjoyable because it can dull the feelings of contractions and help them stay relaxed as they return to the surface.