I'm going to try working on my static breath hold again. It's probably been 10 yrs since I toyed around with it when I did 3:40. I'm interested to see if I gain any significant down time if I improve my static ability. Has anyone noticed a difference in your diving with static improvement?

everybody is going to probably tell you that statics mean nothing related to spearfishing, and physically they don't, the best training for spearfishing is light to heavy "apnea-cardio". Statics will teach you how to relax in the water, especially if you do them at depth, you will be 100% focused on staying relaxed and maintaining a low heartrate and hopfully you can translate this into learning how to be relaxed when doing more physical diving. so the benefit is probably more psychological. you might want to ask on deeperblue.net because there are alot of experts from all freediving disciplines on there that know alot about the physiology of freediving.

hold your breath while running hogs, that will surely improve your bottom time.

One of my friends drowned a big boar in a ditch, it was a interesting sight, although I guess this has nothing to do with diving.

I would think the increase in CO2 tolerance(physical or psychological?)would allow me to stay relaxed longer, we'll see.. Just did a session in the pool, 10 breath holds working up to 3:30. I'm gonna do it for a solid two wks and see if I can tell a difference.

Apnea hog dogging.. sounds like the new SUPER EXTREME sport of the future:D
I had to drown a boar about a mnth ago, after I got in and realized I'd forgotten my knife and rope:slap:. I was amazed how long that sucker could hold his breath:eek:

Here's my 2 cents. Static breath hold is half your spearfishing breath hold. If you can hold your breath for 3 minutes static, I'd expect you to be able to average between a minute-15 and a minute-30 per dive spearfishing. That's how it works out for me anyway.

Also..... If you start off having a 2 minute static breath hold and then train/work your way up to a 5 minutes static you should be able to hold your breath while spearfishing for a similar amount of increased time. Obviously less because of the physical excersion while diving.

Basically what I'm trying to say is... No matter what you're doing while you hold your breath, if you train to hold it for longer on static, dynamic, or any of the other disciplines of freediving, it all equates to improvement in your breath hold while spearfishing.

I don't know if that makes sense to anyone but me. I hope so, and good luck with your breath holding abilities.


End brain vomit!

I would think the increase in CO2 tolerance(physical or psychological?)would allow me to stay relaxed longer, we'll see.. Just did a session in the pool, 10 breath holds working up to 3:30. I'm gonna do it for a solid two wks and see if I can tell a difference.





you are using a spotter right?

Has anyone ever dove with Noah?

Has anyone ever dove with Noah?

Do I detect sarcasm Greg:D No, I don't use a spotter unless I'm going WAY past my limits. I'm used to being the only freediver so I've got a pretty good sense of self protection;)

No, I don't use a spotter unless I'm going WAY past my limits. I'm used to being the only freediver so I've got a pretty good sense of self protection;)

I don't know your style to understand the meaning of the "wink", but no one should be doing statics in the water without a spotter. If your brain O2 goes low enough to pass out, you'll never know it and die.

I see it like this, when I go to the gym I don't try and lift more than what I should because I don't like using spotters. I feel having someone constantly watching your back builds a false sense of security(whether people realize it or not) that can come back to bite you in the ass. However, gains improve each session, whether it be lifting iron or freediving. I don't have to pop a hernia or pass out to make gains. I've been doing this a looong time and know my limits, staying well within them. When I do decide to even attempt coming close to my limit , of course, I use spotters.

I know this has been discussed before, but freediving to me is a very personal thing. Most of the situations I dive there is no spotter that's gonna come save me. Therefore, I train to rely on myself. This is not to say I'm against spotters, by all means I use them whenever trying something outside my comfort level.

I don't want any newbies to read this and think that I'm saying everybody should do it this way, but I do know myself and that's the most important thing with apnea.

Please feel free to say "I told you so" if you ever see my obituary though ;)

I see it like this, when I go to the gym I don't try and lift more than what I should because I don't like using spotters. I feel having someone constantly watching your back builds a false sense of security(whether people realize it or not) that can come back to bite you in the ass. However, gains improve each session, whether it be lifting iron or freediving. I don't have to pop a hernia or pass out to make gains. I've been doing this a looong time and know my limits, staying well within them. When I do decide to even attempt coming close to my limit , of course, I use spotters.

I know this has been discussed before, but freediving to me is a very personal thing. Most of the situations I dive there is no spotter that's gonna come save me. Therefore, I train to rely on myself. This is not to say I'm against spotters, by all means I use them whenever trying something outside my comfort level.

I don't want any newbies to read this and think that I'm saying everybody should do it this way, but I do know myself and that's the most important thing with apnea.

Please feel free to say "I told you so" if you ever see my obituary though ;)

I don't know if you realize how easy it is to blackout without even thinking you are close to doing so. I really think you should change some things, take it from somebody that had to learn the hard way

I do appreciate the concern, thank you:toast:

I have had the pleasure to dive with Noah many times, probably one of the most modest divers and he always dives within his limits, even when he has another great diver keeping his eye on him....yea you Gamble :toast:

Hey now! Watch who you're callin' "modest"... you're gonna ruin my reputation of being a badass :D

get out and do it as often as you can.

The more you do it, the more comfortable you will get. As your comfort
level builds your bottom time will follow.

It is by far more of a pyschological, than a pyhsical feat.

I'm with MackDaddy on this one, I don't think it's a good idea to be doing statics in the pool with no spotter, even if you're staying well within your limits. Over on deeperblue.net they have several threads about people dying from doing statics in the pool and I can't imagine that any of them had planned on pushing their limits. For statics it's good to get your CO2 levels down before you start which makes it even harder to know where your actual limits are.

Why don't you just do your statics laying in bed or on a couch? I know being in the water brings you one step closer to the environment that you will actually be diving in but it's not like floating on the surface of a pool with your eyes closed is all that similar to doing an aspetto dive and looking for fish. Just my 2 cents bro, I'm definitely not trying to tell you what you should be doing, but just be aware that a lot of people have died doing the same thing.

Oh, and to answer your initial question, I definitely think that practicing statics will improve your bottom time.

Oh, and to answer your initial question, I definitely think that practicing statics will improve your bottom time.

There are different train of thoughts around this. I am not a firm believer that practicing statics will translate into better bottom times while spearfishing and can be dangerous. Statics can help you increase your CO2 tolerance, which if you learn to suppress too efficiently, it will enhance you chances of a blackout.

I learned quite a bit from Anderson York when I started out. If you go to deeperblue, you can look up his past posts around this subject. He developed a training program that was conduscive to freediving and also acknowledged that statics are not the best tool to improve your skills and diving prowess as a spearfisherman. In any event, if you decide to do them in a pool, you're a playing russian roulette if you do not include a partner.

Rolo, I agree with you that practicing statics too much can lead to an increase in CO2 tolerance which can be dangerous to a spearfisherman, all I was saying is that statics would help develop bottom time, which is what Noah was asking about. Doing statics helped me with my bottom time, although I was doing other training at the same time so it's hard to tease apart how much each facet of training helped me. The statics that I did were always one warm-up hold and one full hold, and they helped me stretch my lungs out on a daily basis and helped me know the feelings that accompany the various phases of a breath hold, both of these things I would say can be helpful to a spearo.

Normally, when people ask me what is the best way to improve bottom time I always tell them the same thing: learn to be absolutely relaxed while diving, and that would probably be the best thing for anyone instead of practicing statics.

Also, I definitely don't recommend doing CO2 tables to lower CO2 tolerance, that is something strictly for freedivers and can be extremely dangerous for spearos. I don't even recommend doing the O2 tables that they teach in freediving courses as they inadvertently increase CO2 tolerance as well since you are doing several holds back-to-back.

OK, OK, I give in:banghead: I will have my wife watch me in the pool when I do statics.

Now back to the subject, it did cross my mind that too much CO2 tolerance might be a little dangerous until I get used to the combined aerobic activity of diving. That's why I'm going to do it very carefully, WITH A SPOTTER. I just want to see how static training(by itself) will affect my diving.

I plan on isolating each of the training methods to see which one I respond best to, probably try a cardio only routine next.

Thank you all for your thoughts:toast:

OK, OK, I give in:banghead: I will have my wife watch me in the pool when I do statics.

:smthumbup: good luck with the training, let us know how it goes

Well that went about as well as I thought it would:slap:

Third hold, I'm at 4 min. and my wife starts yanking on my ear, yelling "come up! come up now".... grudginly I came up at 4:10 to see her shaking her head at me...
"I'm not doing this anymore, You scare me!"... oh well, end of pool session for today.

Ah the story of my life... hard to find people to play anymore :D Gonna work on her some more, we'll see what happens.

haha, been there done that. The key to getting my wife to not freak out while timing me was for me to give a thumbs up every 30 seconds or whenever she tapped my shoulder, try that.

Get a good freedive computer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are the KING:allhail: of the 30 sec. breathup when a guns in your hand. Without knowing you last bottom time it's difficult to know what is required on your next breathup just to get back to even.

The battery died in mine a couple weeks ago and I was worthless.

I am a mediocre at freediving, but I used to be worse!

My personal experience was statics didn’t do much. My wife is much like yours, except her level of discontent with statics kicked in closer to 3 minutes. She also never saw much reason for doing more than one static per session. :(

I find that she is more receptive to watching me swim underwater laps. It makes her feel more comfortable that as long as there is still movement, then everything is OK. She’ll let me go as many times as I like. Short of the opportunity to go out frequently, this seems to be the best training.

IMHO, the best out-of-water training seems to be doing breath-holds going up and down flights of stairs.

Remember, this is coming from a beginner level perspective, so take it with a grain of salt or your favorite adult beverage. :toast:

OK. After waaaay too much time gleaning from deeperblue, I'm more confused than ever. Truthfully, I don't think they even know WTF the best science is. More than 3/4 of the "techniques" they talk about I've been doing all my life, the other 1/4 is just plain dangerous, irrelevant to spearfishing in my opinion.

I'm sure there is a secret to being a better freedive spearfisherman, I just think it's underwater somewhere.

Get a good freedive computer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are the KING:allhail: of the 30 sec. breathup when a guns in your hand. Without knowing you last bottom time it's difficult to know what is required on your next breathup just to get back to even.

The battery died in mine a couple weeks ago and I was worthless.

When I got my computer it opened up a whole new world (can of worms maybe?) into my methods and timing. One thing I realized is when you go down to shoot fish, sometimes it feels like you are down forever looking at that fish, but you come up and see your actual time and it is not as long as you thought it was. The surface interval timer was a huge help to me also. Even in the pool.

I don't think statics do much for freedive spearfishing, I think all they do is help you in a static comp

I used to practice statics for a few months and my diving never significantly improved, even though I had a static over 4 mins, I would struggle to do 1:30 dives.

Now, I have stopped training statics and instead started doing dynamic training in the pool (following some of pelizzari's workouts). I have added a good 30-45 secs to my dive times, with no problems doing 2min dives in 60-90'. I tried doing a couple of statics the other day an could barely reach 2 minutes!

best training for diving is diving itself, then dynamic in the pool, forget statics.

Thanks Oto, I'll try it. I noticed somebody on DB talking about doing dynamics with a static in the middle.. said he'd go a certain distance, hold on to a weight belt until he felt the urge to breathe and then head back. I like the sound of that, next best thing to actually spearing:smthumbup: