Oxygen and freediving

[Bora_Horza]

Just wondering about how the human body uses oxygen really..

Say you're out snorkeling, nice warm tropical water, you hyperventilate 5 or 6 times to get all the CO2 out your lungs, then you take another 3 or 4 breaths from a pure O2 mini cylinder or something, so you've got loads of oxygen in your lungs.

How long would you be able to stay freediving underwater before you pass out and probably drown yourself? Would it be 3 times as long compared to if you only had air in your lungs?

 

[Hank49]

You could get an O2 bottle and try while lying on your couch watching TV.

 

[Gene_Hobbs]

Our final manuscript of all three phases is in production but these should wet your appetite.

NW Pollock, RD Vann, ED Thalmann and CE Lundgren. Oxygen-Enhanced Breath-hold Diving, Phase I: Hyperventilation and Carbon Dioxide Elimination. In: EJ Maney, Jr and CH Ellis, Jr (Eds.) The Diving for Science…1997, Proceedings of the American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS), Seventeenth annual Scientific Diving Symposium, Northeastern University, Boston, MA.
http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/4647

PaO2 and PaCO2 DURING BREATH-HOLD. (NOTE: Phase II abstract)
Corkey et. al. 1998
http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/648

 

[freediver]

ahhh, Mr Hobbs, as an avid freediver and casual researcher into these subjects, thank you for this wealth of information!

 

[Gene_Hobbs]

ahhh, Mr Hobbs, as an avid freediver and casual researcher into these subjects, thank you for this wealth of information!

Thank you! It is VERY much a work in progress. We are adding more almost every day, cleaning up the database every day (very messy now), and scanning every night.

Hope everyone saw our first 'real' announcement in the current Alert Diver.

One that is definately worth reading is:
Physiology of Breath-Hold Diving and the Ama of Japan.
Rahn and Yokoyama, 1965.
http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/3279
Note: large download, we provided this for the last UHMS/ DAN Breath-hold Workshop.

or pretty much anything by Herman Rahn.