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Free-diver with monofin, ascending.
Freediving is any of various aquatic activities that share the practice of breath-hold underwater diving. Examples include breathhold spearfishing, freedive photography, apnea competitions and, to a degree, snorkeling. The activity that garners the most public attention is competitive apnea, an extreme sport, in which competitors attempt to attain great depths, times or distances on a single breath without direct assistance of an underwater breathing apparatus.
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Freediving is a technique used with various aquatic activities. While in general all aquatic activities that include breath-hold diving might be classified as a part of freediving, some sports are more accepted than others. Examples of recognized freediving activities are (non-) competitive freediving, (non-) competitive spearfishing, freedive photography and mermaid shows. Less recognised examples of freediving include, but are not limited to, synchronised swimming, underwater rugby, underwater hockey, underwater hunting other than spearfishing and snorkeling. The discussion remains whether freediving is only a synonym for breath-hold diving or whether it describes a specific group of underwater activities. Freediving is often strongly associated with competitive breath-hold diving or Competitive Apnea. It is a sport in which competitors attempt to attain great depths, times, or distances on a single breath and without the assistance of breathing apparatus like SCUBA. The following remainder of this article will only discuss competitive freediving as an athletic sport.
Competitive freediving is currently governed by two world associations: AIDA International and CMAS. Most types of competitive freediving have in common that it is an individual sport based on the best individual achievement. An exception to this rule is the bi-annual World Championship for Teams, held by AIDA, where the combined score of the team members makes up the team\'s total points. There are currently nine disciplines used by official governing bodies and a dozen disciplines that are only practiced locally. In this article, the recognized disciplines of AIDA and CMAS will be described. All disciplines can be done by both men and women and, while done outdoors, no differences in the environment between records are recognized any longer. The disciplines of AIDA can be done both in competition and as a record attempt, with the exception of Variable Weight and No limits, which are both only done as record attempts. The following official disciplines are recognized by AIDA, CMAS, or both.
For all AIDA disciplines, the depth the athlete will attempt is announced before the dive. This is accepted practice for both competitions and record attempts.
Each organization has its own rules on recognizing an attempt. These can be found on the website from the respective organizations.
The human body has several adaptations under diving conditions, which stem from the mammalian diving reflex. These adaptations enable the human body to endure depth and lack of oxygen far beyond what would be possible without the reflex.
The adaptations made by the human body while underwater and at high pressure include:
Training for free diving can take many forms, many of them out of water.
One example is the apnea walk. This consists of a preparation "breathe-up", followed by a short (typically 1 minute) breath hold taken at rest. Without breaking the hold, the participant then initiates a walk for as far as they can, until it becomes necessary to breathe again. Athletes can do close to 400 meters in training this way.
This form of training is good for accustoming muscles to work under anaerobic conditions, and for tolerance to CO2 build-up in the circulation. It is also easy to gauge progress, as increasing distance can be measured.
Before diving, most performance oriented free divers hyperventilate to a certain degree, resulting in a lower level of CO2 in their lungs and bloodstream. This postpones the start of stimulation to the breathing centre of the brain, and thus delays the warning signals of running out of air. As the oxygen level of the blood is not increased by hyperventilation, this is very dangerous and may result in drowning. (For more detail refer to the articles shallow water blackout and deep water blackout.) Trained freedivers are well aware of this and will only dive under strict and first aid competent supervision. However this does not, of itself, eliminate the risk of deep or shallow water blackout. All safe free divers have a \'buddy\' who accompanies them, observing from within the water at the surface. Safety is a huge part of freediving. A recent fatality with a renown freediver was due to the \'buddy\' watching only from the boat, not within the water.
The sport is generally acknowledged as the invention of the Bottom Scrapers, a diving club in San Diego, California in the 1930s.[1][2]
Look up Free-diving in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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