Freediving Beginner to Intermediate: get unstuck and progress from 20 to 40 metres [My Freediving Trilogy, Part 2]

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This is Part Two of My Freediving Trilogy.

My second phase in freediving depth training was the weeks after completing my SSI Level 1. When I planned the trip to Tenerife to learn freediving, even though the level 1 course training was only about 3 days, I decided to extend the stay by a few more weeks so that I can continue to train on the days off while I work remotely. This turned out to be a great plan, mostly because it took some time pressure off while I was figuring out how to do Frenzel and not knowing if I’d ever be able to learn it. 

After completing the course, I continued to train on some vacation days and weekends. I was at a stage where I was learning something new in every single training session. I was progressing steadily. And I was simply enjoying every opportunity to go into the water and experiment. 

During the level 1 course, I went from 0 to 12, then 15, then 17. I was also trying both Free Immersion and bi-fins dives, and a day later I reached about 20 metres. 

Then I got stuck, at around 22 metres. I remember the main thing (or only thing?) that stopped me from going deeper was equalisation. I felt like I had no more air to equalise, and my chest felt tight. Overall I just felt uncomfortable going past 20m, and kept turning around the same depth. I remember quite vividly this feeling of being stuck - I wasn’t really devastated per se, since I was already diving deeper than my goal of 5 metres so practically anything more than that was a bonus. But I was definitely a little frustrated as I started to really enjoy freediving as a sport and an experiment, and would like to see how far I can go. At that point, I didn’t know what I was doing wrong or how to solve it. It also didn’t feel like it was a place to stop or give up because there were lots of people diving deeper than this, so just from a statistical perspective, I knew I was still at the very left of the distribution and should have been quite far away from my limit even as an “untalented” freediver. 

During the few sessions when I was stuck, I also trained with a few different instructors so it was great to get some feedback from different perspectives. But what helped me effectively break through this bottleneck was one simple exercise that Linda Paganelli gave me. I call it -

The getting-used-to-the-collapsed-lung exercise

Linda is the owner of the Atlantis diving centre, and was the Italian national record holder and had years of experience in freediving and teaching. At the time, Linda was doing her own training, but “adopted” me in one of the sessions because the other instructors were busy / had the day off. When we had coffee after the session where I again got stuck around the same depth, she told me the following (paraphrased):

You are experiencing the discomfort because your body is not used to the depth. The sensation you feel when you go past the lungs’ residual volume is new, and when your body experiences new sensations your mind can freak out and send alert signals “something is wrong”. And because of this, you are probably also not relaxed. When you tense up, it’s harder to bring up air so you feel the tightness in your chest and you feel that you have no more air to equalise. What you can do is to help your body get used to this new sensation, and let it know that it’s okay, nothing bad is happening, and so you can relax. 

And she gave me the below exercise:

Passive exhale (sigh out), 90% pinch the nose, and Frenzel so that you lose a bit of air each time you equalise. Repeat a few times until you have no more air or cannot hold the breath anymore. Try to relax when you feel the chest tighten up as the lung volume shrinks. 

This exercise should help one get used to the feeling of the small lungs (the “collapsed lungs” feeling as I call it, or “tiny lungs” as Linda said). And trying to focus on relaxation helps to release the tension and get the mind used to the idea of “relaxation is the thing to do when I feel this”. The other thing it helps with is the mind of saying no - I had my mind “freaking out” and saying no to me in most of the early turns because I thought I was not able to make it. And knowing that I still could equalise 5, 6 times after the “collapsed lung” feeling on land gave me confidence that I probably still have a lot more air that I could bring up when I feel it at 22m. 

So I practised this for one afternoon, and the next morning I went straight to 27, and the morning after that 30 metres. Then in the next 4 sessions, my PB steadily progressed to 39 metres! This was a long way from 22 metres, and even more from the 5 metres goal I set initially :) 

Exploring El Peñon wreck

Besides the exercise, I think being in the water and diving consecutively was also very helpful. Depth adaptation comes with time as well, and being in the water and letting the body get used to the feeling and learn to relax at depth, with hangs, and different disciplines, and find the good sensations of a smooth, relaxed dive can all contribute to the body and mind getting used to this new territory and experience, which eventually pushes the comfort zone further.

PS, at some point I also received some suggestions on lung stretching and FRC dives, for similar reasons as the exercise. I didn’t really do much of either of these. Not doing lung stretching was probably just due to laziness (oops) and not knowing how to do it properly (but should be able to find out easily, so laziness). Didn’t do FRC dive because at some point I actually attempted to do one and was told off by an instructor (I wasn’t aware that FRC is quite a risky thing and you are supposed to learn how to do it properly in an advanced course). 

To summarise, the main themes for my progression from 20 to 39 was getting used to new sensations, depth adaptation and relaxation.