Is It Worth The Hype?

03/07/2023

By developing the Alchemy neck weight we aimed to ensure that freedivers could have enhanced and safer freediving experiences with reduced effort and minimal oxygen usage. Shortly after its introduction, it gained enthusiastic acceptance from thousands of divers worldwide. Here's a glimpse into the feedback shared.

Gary McGrath

I'm a freediving athlete and coach, and I'm Britain's National Record holder in constant weight, with a personal best of 112 meters, and I'm here today to talk to you about the Alchemy freediving neck weight. When I first started freediving, 16 years ago, there was nothing commercially available. So, the geniuses at Alchemy decided to change that and they invented this. I've used it really extensively and my kit does get bashed around a bit and I haven't put a single mark on it. You'd have to really go for it to damage it or cut it.

One thing I really dislike about these old-style DIY neck weights is when they sit around your neck, if you don't get the sizing right, it can put a lot of pressure on your carotid artery, which is precisely how you make somebody pass out. This, on the other hand, is fully adjustable. It is so malleable, you can adjust it to no matter what shape neck you have and it won't budge. It feels extremely high-end, it's very nicely made, and to be honest I think it's probably almost indestructible. One thing I really like about it is the simplicity of the design, it's literally a piece of lead that's coated in really high-quality silicone. It's very easily adjustable around your neck, it's very easy to remove in an emergency, and it sticks, it stays exactly where it is, and you actually completely forget it's there, whether you're wearing a smooth skin suit or a line suit, it sticks exactly where it is, it won't move.

Zoe Springer

It's got this really cool responsive memory architecture, which as you can see essentially means it's really malleable and you can just push it into place. And what that does is that it promises a super precise fit around my neck, no matter the thickness of my wetsuit. And just by pushing on the sides like this it secures and it also just makes me feel really safe underwater. It's got this wide design and coupled with a silicone rubber that means that it sticks to my wetsuit and it's not jiggling around whether I'm in the pool or whether I'm depth training or if I'm just snorkeling on the reef. So yeah, it allows me to be really hydrodynamic as well just because I'm so relaxed, not even realizing that it's on me most of the time.

So it's totally the most superior piece of equipment that I've tried, and I love neck weights so, I have tried many. And not only is it really beautiful and sleek, because that's important, to look cool underwater, but it's also super sturdy, which means that for once when I'm traveling I have a piece of equipment that I'm not worried about braking or anything like that. Yeah, it's really become essential to me and that's just because of its versatility you know, it works perfectly whether you are daily depth training, whether you're snorkeling, or whether you're doing dynamic, or whether you're kind of doing a peak performance dive at target depth you know. I'm totally smitten with it as you can see.

Saveliy Mankovskiy

One thing that I noticed right away was that they didn't do like a one-size-fits-all approach when it came to this neck weight. They made it in three different sizes, three different lengths, and then on top of that also make it in three different weights, depending on whichever length. Another thing that I noticed about it is that it's coated in silicone and so when you're going up and down the line the silicone is able to grip your neck a lot better and it's not just going to be sliding up and down your neck, bouncing around. That way you can focus on EQ, you can focus on technique, focus on falling asleep at the line and just do your thing.

So, whether you want your chin to be all the way touching your chest or you want to do the tennis ball thing, where you pretend you have a tennis ball between your chin and your in your chest, whatever position you want your neck to be in, this thing is not gonna prevent you from keeping it there, because there's an opening. Another thing that I really like about this is that it feels like it just disappears in just two or three minutes of having it on. Once I put it on within just a few minutes I forget that I even have this thing on me. This will improve streamlining, this will improve your trim a lot, and it really changes the game on your freefall and just overall on your descent.

Still Using A DIY Neck Weight?