what is the secret to a huge breathold?

Thank u Doctor All
For all you out there all is a doctor.
Great to get your knowlwdge on this matter
cheers
Belle

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Underwater Hockey Rules!

i agree on the" being relaxed"

in some big games im so nervous on warm ups that i find it unbelievable how weak i am on holding my breath then in normal training sessions back home,i feel super relaxed and stay down for ages.

by the way anyone know any good techniques for staying relaxed before a game, i tend to get hyper and enter the water like a pitbull.

good for knockin the **** out of some poor guy,bad for relaxing and long breath holds

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top of de mornin to yeh

find a routine, any routine, and just do the same routine you normally do for any game, before the big game.

before a pressure game you'll feel pumped and maybe a tad nervous... but heck, thats why we play the sport isn't it? i get off on that anticipation type feeling, personally.

if you find yourself or someone round you getting a bit too nervous, it sometimes helps to just think logically about whats about to happen... for example, when it comes down to it, nothing you can do will make any difference to the outcome of the game other than putting in all your effort. all your training has already been done, all your prep, everything is behind you and it's time to actually have the fun, and whatever happens happens.

or other such trains of thought to relieve a bit of pressure... maybe link a thought that relaxes you to a word and then after a bit of linking that word will have relaxing connotations for you.

theres heaps of little mindgames you can play with yourself. i guess everyone must have different ways of doing it... like, i fiddle with my gear constantly even though it all fits perfectly, it's just a habitual nervous reaction but it seems to keep me focussed.

but i have to say, entering the game like a pitbull would have to be one of the things i think is a really bad thing, for any player, irrespective of their playing style. i accept there may be players out there that might find it works for them to be really fired up, but essentially doing that without switching off the brain entirely is a very fine line to tread... i don't know many players who can do it while staying intelligent.

hang on this is a different thread now isn't it?

Not sure if I should continue to veer off topic, but I've always felt entering a game/event calm and collected was the better choice for most people. This includes other sports. Back in School and University I ran the 400m and 800m in track. There were always teamates running with me that wanted to listen music to get pumped up and excitable and "enter like a pit bull". Most (but not all) started hard and fizzled fast, usually slower in competition than their practice times. Hockey is more noticable than most other sports i think becuase of the breathold. I think the people it works for would be just as well off being mellow, and everyone else would benifit.

Pre-game/event routine is key to relaxing/performance in any sport as well. More noticable in an individual sport but I think just as helpful in team sports.

As far as staying intelligent. For a while I've classified some players as "Brain On" and some as "Brain Off". Most are somewhere in between. But is seems there are some people if they are not actively engaged and thinking about the game do dumb stuff, they need their "Brain On" to play well. Then there are others who when they start thinking their legs stop moving and they consistently throw pucks to the wrong people, they need their "Brain Off" to play.

...nah they dont need to be brain off. they are just thinking too many steps ahead... and i've seen that happen to good players, suddenly they try to think too much and yeah, like you say, do daft things like stop moving or pass to the wrong guy or whatever.

maybe theres an optimum thinking level... but to be honest i dont think so, i just think when players get stuck in that frame of mind it's generally because they are trying too hard.

Sadly there isn't much to learn from the altitude to underwater hockey analogy. And I'm further not certain that any of the physiological models have anything much to do with explaining what one earth happens to us as UWH players.

This is because sustained hypoxia is turning out to be an entirely different beastie to intermittant hypoxia in the disease models of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (sustained hypoxia-emphysemia for example) and obstructive sleep apnea (intermittant hypoxia). The intermittant hypoxia is becoming recognised as a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Which got me wondering about how many of the 40-60 year old otherwise fit UWH players were coming down with CVD. Does UWH cause CVD?

The problem is that we're not even sure that UWH causes intermittant hypoxia. Liam and I have both tried to hold our breath while attached to a pulse Ox and haven't gotten the thing to move at all. Even past two minutes I couldn't get below 97%. COPD patients are chronically below 90% and severe OSA patients have intermittant drops sometimes into the 50s and 60s% and regularly below 90%. You normally need very bad lungs, low oxygen level sin the air (altitute or trapped in an enclosed space) or breathholding on an empty lung to desat (like sleep apnea). So I'm not sure whether we even get ox desaturations from UWH. Would be very hard to measure.

Respiration rates in normal people are determined by three major factors. First CO2 levels as Al has already said. 2nd Ox levels. 3rd acid-base levels in the blood (not as important but can be experimentally manipulated- usually a product of the mix of co2 and o2). Breath hold above that is something else. General cardiovsacular fitness for a start and a combo of will power and training at holding your breath seem to be the leading modifiables. Like Al said.

Interestingly my response to low O2 when subjected to about 70% of normal is quite blunted. It takes a while for respiration to speed up. I've never heard of another hockey player being given the same test though. It could just be me. I also don't know whether UWH players have more red blood cells than equivalent sportspeople (eg a soccer player).

Sadly for us all there's no real research and we don't know what UWH players are really doing.

Liam. Perhaps you want to tell your story about high alt training again just below my post?

Scratch that last request. You've already posted that story here anyway. See above everybody else.