If you want to develop your breath-hold diving on Koh Tao you should consider joining us at Big Blue Freediving and enrolling in a course that will help you lengthen the time you can hold your breath for.
Breath-hold Diving on Koh Tao
Unlike the other disciplines, static is pure body and mind preparation. It doesn’t require complicated skills such as swimming, equalization or pressure adaptation. You only have to work on one thing. Being slowly more comfortable with the discomfort. This is really the best Static Apnea definition in my opinion. So if you don’t have time for Static, the 2nd best thing to do is Morning Max. As soon as you wake up, go to the toilet, drink one glass of water, lay down again, do a static breathing for 4-5 minutes (I have a post that describes the best breathing for static), then hold your breath for as long as you can. Then you can go on with your Lazy-Ass day! If you do this almost every day (6 days/week) for a month, your static will go up for sure. Results will be up and down during the month of course, but at Day 30 you will have significantly increase your breath-hold. You don’t have to push mad from the start.
Try to remember the sensation of discomfort each day and go just a little further each time. You will be amazed at how the mind will slowly adapt to Co2. I personally use this technique every day in the water or dry when I’m not doing the 1st best thing. The first best thing is obviously to train a high volume of different breath holds. But I’m sure that someone patient can reach a 7ish minute Static using only the “Morning Max approach”. The idea is to make the breath-hold a little harder sooner to have more motivation during the discomfort phase. The nervous system will adapt faster and your body will understand the need for a stronger and faster dive response. It will take time but it worked for every Lazy-Ass I trained so far. I believed the former Static World Record Holder Tom Sietas was using this approach.
What is your opinion on “Morning Max”? Do you still have an excuse not to practice Static Apnea? Are you a Lazy-ass?
