Issue 37 of Spread the Insanity comes from our very own German doctor of nucleur medicine and martial artist Marc Wermke (see also profile issue 29). This is a fascinating insight into another form of training often overlooked. Marc also touches upon the mental and spiritual aspects of the Freediving experience. I’m heading straight for the pool to give this go. Awesome stuff. Thanks Marc!
Apnea or Freediving Pt.2
I enjoyed the last issues about Parkour and Tackling a lot. Fast paced sports, tough and demanding on both mind and body. Yet I would like to take the opportunity , if not to introduce, then at least to share some brief thoughts about a field I am starting to dive into myself: Apnea diving or freediving. Both terms account for the same thing: diving only on breathhold, no bottles, just your lungs - thus free-diving.
A lot of you will know the Big Blue by Luc Besson and a lot of you will have heard about no-limits legends like Loic Leferme, Tanya Streeter, Herbert Nitsch and others. What gets the most attention in the media is just one, albeit fascinating sub-discipline: no limits. This is unfortunately the discipline that has claimed the most victims as it is the most extreme and dangerous variant.
I will focus on other disciplines, hoping to inspire some of you to attempt some laps under water.
Two subdisciplines that everyone who can swim, can undergo is static and dynamic apnea. Heck, static can even be done in your bathtub. Before I will explain what it means and put up a nice little training variant I have to empasize two basic rules (there are a lot more, but we will not go to extremes).
- Do not hyperventilate! All you do is lower your CO2-level reducing the urge to breathe. If your hyperventilate your blood oxygen level will drop faster during the dive than the CO2 level increases, thus you will pass out before feeling the urge to breath.
- Never dive alone. Have someone you trust and who knows how to rescue, watch over you.
Now for the fun part...
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