I recently heard Bonga say you need to be able to hold your breath for 2 minutes to surf in Hawaii. I can only manage 25 secs. ( I’m pretty old) and I start to panic when held under for more than a few seconds, what are some techniques for improving a persons breath holding capacity? Do’nt say freediving or sitting on the bottom because the water temp. is only 11 degrees here.
i question claims like this. from what i understand, when it comes down to it, you can hold it a lot longer than you think. you brain is designed to “trick” you into thinking you can’t. it’s about mind control. panic will only make it worse.
as a grom, i used to panic. now days, i try not to even think about how long i’ve been down, it only makes me run out of breath faster.
my dad is in his late 50s and he can do about 2.5 minutes resting. but highly doubt he can do it in big surf.
so lets here it from the NS guys. How common is a 2 minute hold down?
In respects to what you can do to improve your breatholding -
running
swimming laps
open ocean swimming
run/swim combinations.
here’s something i do. when your swimming laps in a pool, choose the appropriate time in your workout routine to swim a lap or two and do the last lap (or more) underwater, along the bottom without taking a breath. focus on relaxation while your doing it. don’t focus on getting to the other side as much you do relaxing and keeping good form in your stroke. helps not to look ahead, but to look at the bottom. you may surprise yourself.
Cycling is pretty good for lung capacity too. And I think any kind of interval training, where you sprint then rest, sprint then rest, etc is going to really improve your cardio fitness. Hard work though, I used to throw up after doing hill training on my bike. Football, tennis or similar is a good run around and the excitement/adrenaline makes it hurt less, for me anyway.
All good suggestions above. Just remember to have a spotter if you are doing underwater practice because, although it may not be likely to happen, if you do exceed your capacity you can pass out. On land maybe you bump your head. In water, you drown.
Several things I noticed on the northshore related to holddowns …
Firstly, seems like you could get held inside a boil of water and pushed down a long way. Sometimes it took seemingly ages to pop out (no idea how long in minutes). This seemed to happen more on the outside type waves. Even in medium surf this would happen.
Second, you had to watch out and keep positive pressure in your lungs. The pressure was such that it would force water in your nose in a way is doesn’t do elsewhere, or not that I have found.
The ‘‘word’’ in the '50’s was that you had to hold your breath for 3 min’s. It doesn’t hurt if you can, but the reality is that even giant surf has wave periods of 15 sec. to 18 sec., and it is RARE to be held down for two waves. So, in my experience, I’d estimate my longest hold down at 15/16 sec., even in very big Sunset. Try breath holding practice by starting with a 10 sec. hold, followed by one or two min’s of deep slow breathing, and then do 15 sec., then breathing, then 20 sec., and so on. I suspect that in short order you’ll be at 1 to 1 1/2 min’s before you know it. Good luck.
i do pushups on single breaths…
an interesting thing i’ve noticed corresponds with whats stated above about being a largely mental deal.
when underwater, i’d try to time myself by counting off seconds (i had a stopwatch as well which i was using, but kept my eyes shut)
the next day i’d use something else to time myself, like saying the ABCs as many times as possible.
i usually held out longer underwater when i didnt know how long i had been under for…
Aloha bargearse
I don’t think Bonga meant that one would have to actually hold their breath for 2 minutes underwater in typical Hawaiian surf. That would be an extremely rare occurrence!
What he meant was… that if you could hold your breath for 2 minutes out of the water, you might be able to handle 30 seconds in an actual North Shore impact zone!
Relaxation is everything, assuming one is in good condition. The power and compressive force of the breaking wave and the distance one can fall and impact the water from is huge. It is easy to loose half your breath simply from the impact forces. And it is very difficult to stay calm when it seems like the whole world is crashing down on you personally!
Waves are around 15 seconds apart. A 2 wave hold down can easily be 30+ seconds underwater or more. Rarely would one be held down for more than 2 waves unless they were unconscious. Though it can happen.
I should probably also note here that, the power of our waves foams up the water more and creates deep layers of foam that won’t float a person very well, if at all. Therefore, when you finally swim for the surface thinking you will be able to get your head above water and grab a breath or even rest, you won’t be able to do so. You will still have to swim aggressively to keep your head above water grab a breath, and then dive deep to miss the next wave.
Often when caught inside, this cycle can happen with several waves till you are fully spent and barely able to function. This is why the infamous, “running with a boulder in your arms underwater” is an effective stress test to simulate similar conditions, and train for them.
This is what the 2 minute breath holding is about. It is a safer way to measure one’s conditioning… before the the Hawaiian Surf measures you for real!
good explanation.
a good addition to the rock running is attach a bouy to it, you have to pull the bouy so you get extra strain that way.
Hyperventilating prior to holding your breath helps a little. Open your mouth and rapidly breath in and out deeply five or six times. This will fill your lungs with air an allow you to stay under a little longer. Don’t hyperventilate for too long though, or you’ll pass out.
As a freediver, i wouldnt advocate hyperventilation - too much potential for harm…we’ve had a few black out related drownings over here both in the pool and in the ocean spearfishing. One a young kid and another a young man in his prime…
just a word of warning is all. I’ve found that just plain old regular swimming helps me a lot. But then again, i dont live in Hawaii!
Ado
To get an idea of your capacity, do 20 press-ups which simulates the effort in paddling for a wave then immediately hold your breath.
I agree with Bill. A while back I timed how long people were held down in order to get my mind ready for bigger waves. Just kinda wanted to know what the heavy guys had to deal with so I could prepare for what I was in for. I was very surprised when I saw the average wipeout at Waimea and the guys would come up in 15 to 20 seconds. I’m talking guys getting exploded off their boards and mowed down from behind or falling off then getting sucked over the falls. The long hold downs were closer to 25 or even 30 seconds but usually less than 20 seconds from the time people hit the water. On occasion a guy would get it bad at around 30 to 40 seconds. (2 wave hold down) It really put things into perspective on how the mind works in a pressure situation. Its amazing how much oxygen you burn while fighting for the surface. Time gets expanded for sure…
I don’t surf really big waves but what I do go out in I feel more confident and have an easier time relaxing knowing the actual average hold down times of the guys surfing way bigger waves than me. No doubt you can get held under longer but one minute under is probably a person that’s drowning. 2 minutes and we’re talking a very bad situation. I think what Bonga may of meant is 2 minutes just relaxed, cruising under water while training or something. This is minimum to handle getting your ass kicked in the real situation for what is really only 15 to 40 seconds.
I tried the hyperventilating technique for a while, one breath all the way out before taking a deep breath in. I stopped doing it when I mistimed and ended up getting spun around underwater having just breathed out all my air. Not fun.
Some aspects of Yoga deal with breathing.
While not specifically aimed at increasing the amount of time a breath is held, it’s an unavoidable consequence.
To put breath-holding times into perspective:
I watched on television a new breath-holding record of slightly more than 15 minutes set a few weeks ago. Apparently that record has been recently been broken by a Lithuanianwith at time of 15 minutes 58 seconds (his sister went about 11 and 1/2 minutes).
http://www.foxnews.com/…,2933,283613,00.html
However these records were set when (pre)breathing pure oxygen, not air.
About 10 years ago, the record for breathing air was 7 minutes 9 seconds. The person who held that older breath-holding record said that physical training (e.g doing running sprints holding one’s breath) was about 10 percent of the training effort; mental training accounted for the other 90 percent. More or less in agreement with the comments already posted in this thread, he said that as soon as one thinks about getting a breath the game’s over.
Here’s a link to an article on a (ultimately failed) record breath-holding attempt (that includes some hints on technique) from May of last year (when the record for breathing air was–and maybe still is–8 minutes, 58 seconds):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/…magazine/4964488.stm
(FWIW, the unlimited free-diving depth record appears to be 214m set by Herbert Nitsch of Austria).
Quote:
As a freediver, i wouldnt advocate hyperventilation - too much potential for harm…we’ve had a few black out related drownings over here both in the pool and in the ocean spearfishing. One a young kid and another a young man in his prime…
just a word of warning is all. I’ve found that just plain old regular swimming helps me a lot. But then again, i dont live in Hawaii!
Ado
In the past, I would have agreed with you. Now I’m not quite so certain with regard to surfing in a survival situation.
In pool and spearfishing situations the tendency is for the diver to want to extend the duration of the time underwater and he is using the CO2 response to judge how much longer he can remain underwater. Based on that, he judges when it is time to surface. When he hyperventilates, the relationship between CO2 signal and the O2 level is perturbed to the point where the CO2 signal may still be weak or absent when the O2 level becomes so low that he blacks out.
The surfing situation is different. In general, the surfer’s objective (within limits) is generally to surface as quickly as possible–but when that occurs may be substantially out of his control. Because of this difference, it would seem that the surfer’s objective would be to maximimize the O2 available at the start of his dive, and minimize the rate of consumption while being held down (i.e. the “relax and go for the ride” approach).
Hyperventilating does increase the volume of O2 initially available, although the increase may be small
(see: The Role of Hyperventilation - http://en.wikipedia.org/…allow_water_blackout ). However, hyperventilating may also reduce the cumulative rate of consumption of O2 by delaying the onset of the CO2 response and bydoing so, reduce the rate of build-up of CO2 (associated with building anxiety about when the turbulence will moderate, and by the rate of CO2 increase).
Given these factors, and that it is largely out of the surfer’s control as to when he can surface, it would seem that there are two possible scenarios leading to the same potential end-point (black-out) in survival situations:
- No hyperventilation - Less O2, greater anxiety → Shorter time between start of dive and black-out.
2 Hyperventilation - More O2, delayed onset of anxiety → Longer time between start of dive and black-out.
Conclusion:
If case 2 reaches the point of black-out, case 1 would have resulted in black-out even earlier.
[Note: The one potential ‘hitch’ in this scheme would seem to be that the hyperventilated surfer must not become so relaxed that he waits too long to initiate his effort to surface.]
Comments?
mtb
With a 17 second wave period, that is a 7 wave hold down.