Crossover benefits to scuba

[aquacat8]

I don’t know if I should even call what I do Free Diving. It’s more like underwater swimming. Because I do it alone I am afraid to try to hold my breath beyond the CO2 trigger, and my dives are really shallow, but I am swimming with fins and a mask underwater. Is that Free Diving? Whatever it is it’s a lot of fun!

 

[Bob DBF]

I don’t know if I should even call what I do Free Diving. It’s more like underwater swimming. Because I do it alone I am afraid to try to hold my breath beyond the CO2 trigger, and my dives are really shallow, but I am swimming with fins and a mask underwater. Is that Free Diving? Whatever it is it’s a lot of fun!

Before the competition free divers took over the name for their particular type of diving, Free Diving used to include a number of different styles including SCUBA. SCUBA was considered free diving because you were not getting your air source through an umbilical and tethered to a boat, therefore the term free diving.

I believe the bigger issue is hyperventilating, increasing your O2 level and decreasing your CO2 level such that the CO2 trigger may not come until it is too late. I have only done that with safety divers spotting me.



Bob

 

[johndiver999]

Before the competition free divers took over the name for their particular type of diving, Free Diving used to include a number of different styles including SCUBA. SCUBA was considered free diving because you were not getting your air source through an umbilical and tethered to a boat, therefore the term free diving.

I believe the bigger issue is hyperventilating, increasing your O2 level and decreasing your CO2 level such that the CO2 trigger may not come until it is too late. I have only done that with safety divers spotting me.



Bob

Hyperventilating does not increase oxygen content to any appreciable extent - its function is primarily to artificially lower carbon dioxide levels- which is what makes it dangerous.

Freediving is beneficial in teaching calmness and efficiency in movement, but other than the potential of aerobic conditioning and strengthening of the legs, freediving is not going to do much for air consumption over an extended period.

 

[aquacat8]

I strongly believe that regular swimming in fins would probably improve the breathing, because when people first start swimming fins they get all out of breath and find it strenuous, and later it’s just so easy and relaxed, how can it not take less breath?

 

[aquacat8]

Before the competition free divers took over the name for their particular type of diving, Free Diving used to include a number of different styles including SCUBA. SCUBA was considered free diving because you were not getting your air source through an umbilical and tethered to a boat, therefore the term free diving.

I believe the bigger issue is hyperventilating, increasing your O2 level and decreasing your CO2 level such that the CO2 trigger may not come until it is too late. I have only done that with safety divers spotting me.



Bob

I like this, because I want to call what I do free diving, it’s just such a great term! However what the competitive freedivers do is very different and way more dangerous!
Bob, did you learn with the California abalone divers? My first “skin diving” experiences were with them, and some of the old guys still slightly hyperventilated, though it was becoming discredited at the time, and people were talking about that. Now it’s completely discredited but I think some people still do it that learned old school.
Besides the risk of shallow water black out being greatly increased, apparently it also interferes with the mammalian dive reflex in some technical way that I don’t remember right now. Some free divers probably wouldn’t have abandoned it just to save their necks, but interfere with the MDR? No way! It’s over! ;-)

 

[kelemvor]

Before the competition free divers took over the name for their particular type of diving, Free Diving used to include a number of different styles including SCUBA. SCUBA was considered free diving because you were not getting your air source through an umbilical and tethered to a boat, therefore the term free diving.

I believe the bigger issue is hyperventilating, increasing your O2 level and decreasing your CO2 level such that the CO2 trigger may not come until it is too late. I have only done that with safety divers spotting me.



Bob

That's an interesting bit of history. How does "skin diving" fit in? I've always wondered about "skin diving magazine" etc...

 

[Bob DBF]

That's an interesting bit of history. How does "skin diving" fit in? I've always wondered about "skin diving magazine" etc...

At one time we didn't have wetsuits. As I remember, it was also used as a differentiation between of free divers between SCUBA and snorkeling which included diving with a snorkel, not just snorkeling on the surface. The meanings have changed over time since I was a kid, and I may not have had it right then.

@Sam Miller III probably has a better handle on the names and how they have changed over the years, may be he will chime in


Bob