PADI OW hyperventilation??

[kyletaylor]

Hi all
Started the IDC course this week and just been skimming through some standards and noticed part of the OW course the dive must demonstrate proper hyperventilation techniques while skin diving.
Anyone care to share a good reason why this is still taught? Obviously being a standard it must be met but as I came from a spearfishing/freediving background I find this rather strange its required.
Cheers

 

[Tortuga68]

Hypoxic Blackout and Hyperventilation - Royal Life Saving

 

[kyletaylor]

Hypoxic Blackout and Hyperventilation - Royal Life Saving

I know what it causes. This is exactly why it should not be taught!!

 

[Nick A]

It teaches to not excessively hyperventilate and purge too much CO2 from your lungs. Proper hyperventilation (per PADI) is 2 or 3 deep breaths and submerge. Not hyperventilate for 10 breaths, submerge, swim and blackout. If you're doing the IDC, you should already know this.

 

[nimoh]

I believe there was a DAN workshop a few years ago that concluded there is no safe number of breaths for hyperventilation and because hyperventilation reduces CO2 levels without increasing O2 levels, it should be avoided.

IMHO, your urge to breathe indicates your need to breathe and artificially modifying your urge to breathe is like extending your bottom time by changing the numbers in your dive tables.

 

[triggerman365]

PADI says that before a breath-hold dive, a diver should "take a few rapid deep breaths before submerging" to reduce the demand for oxygen (see PADI Diving Knowledge Workbook, page 2-3, question 2). A "few' is defined as 3 or 4 breaths (from PADI Dive Theory e-learning, Dive Physiology section). PADI recommends limiting the use of voluntary hyperventilation before breath-hold dives to 3-4 breaths.

 

[tracydr]

Hi all
Started the IDC course this week and just been skimming through some standards and noticed part of the OW course the dive must demonstrate proper hyperventilation techniques while skin diving.
Anyone care to share a good reason why this is still taught? Obviously being a standard it must be met but as I came from a spearfishing/freediving background I find this rather strange its required.
Cheers

Interesting. I just asked about this on another thread when a PADI snorkeling/freediving class was recommended. This is definitely not a recommended technique anymore, according to world class free divers. They have other techniques to improve time underwater but hyperventilation is not considered safe anymore. Far too much risk of blackouts.

---------- Post added September 17th, 2013 at 01:27 PM ----------

It teaches to not excessively hyperventilate and purge too much CO2 from your lungs. Proper hyperventilation (per PADI) is 2 or 3 deep breaths and submerge. Not hyperventilate for 10 breaths, submerge, swim and blackout. If you're doing the IDC, you should already know this.

This is no longer considered a safe technique and PADI should keep up with the current thinking.

 

[kyletaylor]

Interesting. I just asked about this on another thread when a PADI snorkeling/freediving class was recommended. This is definitely not a recommended technique anymore, according to world class free divers. They have other techniques to improve time underwater but hyperventilation is not considered safe anymore. Far too much risk of blackouts.

---------- Post added September 17th, 2013 at 01:27 PM ----------


This is no longer considered a safe technique and PADI should keep up with the current thinking.

I understand what padi considers "proper" hyperventilation. It's a dangerous practice that should be avoided. My father had a SWB as a result of hyperventilation. He was lucky enough to be diving with a experienced buddy. Even small amounts of hyperventilation will trick your brain into not wanting to breath.

 

[Nick A]

This is no longer considered a safe technique and PADI should keep up with the current thinking.

I agree to an extent with the keeping up current thinking, but unril its proven its only thinking. They're making changes to the OW course, its possible they're addressing hyperventilation, but who knows.

 

[boulderjohn]

The thinking on hyperventilation is far from unanimous. Many people contend that 'authorities' are now saying it should not be done, but I have yet to find those authorities. I just searched the DAN site and could find no mention of a prohibition anywhere. I did look through DAN's 2006 workshop on breathhold diving, looking at the papers presented that dealt with hyperventilation, and I could find no such prohibition there, either.

In the discussions following one of the paper presentations (The second one in the proceedings), there is a casual mention of the standard recommendation of 3-4 hyperventilations before diving, with no indication that there is anything wrong with that.

The most thorough one is the one that studied shallow water blackout in Hawaiian breathhold divers. The discussion following that is pretty interesting, for the research found no correlation between hyperventilation and shallow water blackout--the incidents of shallow water blackout was about evenly divided between those who hyperventilated and those who did not.

Also interesting was that in that discussion, the person presenting the paper said that some of the divers said they did not hyperventilate, but they apparently were using their own definition of the term, because what they were doing had all the characteristics of normal hyperventilation.