The Four Main Types of Freediving for Beginners
Quiz results are in, and it seems like there is some confusion about some of the different disciplines in freediving. While “names" are not necessarily of great significance, these 4 main types of freediving are differentiated by the skills they teach, and how students can learn from each to improve their training. For competitive freedivers, many of the biggest competitions in the world (i.e Vertical Blue in the Bahamas) require athletes to compete in multiple disciplines in order to secure a championship title. This means the best freedivers in the world are normally quite good at all of them. So let’s get into it.
Static Apnea: Holding your breath without moving.
We like to call this corpse mode for those with a morbid sense of humour, or a “dirty mie goreng noodle phase” for those with a vivid imagination. We teach freediving in Bali, so for those who don’t know what Mie Goreng is, just imagine your favourite type of soggy noodle floating around in a pool. That’s what we aim to emulate.
Static Apnea is an important building block that allows students to learn the sensations of the body alarm in a safe and controlled environment. The body alarm is a series of biological and physiological sensations that our body feels when we start to build CO2 in the blood. This body alarm is why it’s difficult to hold our breath for very long in a bathtub; it is conditioned to be a survival instinct and will scream at us to take a breath long before we actually need to. The body alarm is something that we become intimately aware of with training, and our brain learns to accept the sensations rather than fear them. With an instructor present, they can guide you through some of these sensations and provide the knowledge your brain needs to accept them as physiological necessities. This allows you to adapt and understand that the feelings are natural. In fact, it's your body keeping you alive when your brain is telling you that you are going to die if you don’t breathe.
Dynamic Apnea: Holding your breath while moving
Dynamic apnea has a similar definition to static apnea, with a very important difference. In dynamic apnea, as the name suggests, we are moving while holding our breath. While methods of dynamic apnea can be diverse as athletes get more and more creative with their training, most are done in a controlled pool-like environment with supervision, safety and attention to detail. This is where it pays to have a 100-meter long pool. At a beginner level, we introduce students to dynamic apnea as we build on the physiology we learn during static apnea. The body alarm is still a focus during dynamic, but this alarm is often more sensitive when there is more energy being used up (O2) and a stronger urge to breathe being produced (CO2). We also start to feel the buildup of lactic acid, an organic acid that builds up in our muscles when our O2 stores start to get low. Much like the body alarm, this is a sensation our body eventually learns to tolerate; some athletes even begin to love it.
We teach dynamic apnea for another reason as well- to work on form. Whether we are using bi fins, a monofin or no fins at all, each person needs to practice technique in order to move their body through the water in the most efficient way. A swimming pool offers a safe and supervised environment in which students can master their finning technique horizontally before taking to the ocean and mastering it vertically. Step by step, we put all of these skills together and begin practicing the crowning discipline- constant weight. Dun dun dun….
Constant Weight: Instagram, here we come.
Constant weight freediving is most familiar to people with no freediving experience, whether they recognize the name or not. As it suggests, it is defined by beginning and ending the dive with the same amount of weight on your body, achieving optimum buoyancy. Most competitive athletes don’t wear much weight when they dive, as they have adapted and trained in order to make it unnecessary. Beginner level students will need a certain amount of weight depending on their individual body type and physiology. Much like scuba diving, a higher muscle to fat ratio normally requires less supplemental weight as muscle is more negatively buoyant. In this trade-off, however, muscle requires more oxygen- so don’t think for a second that because someone is super jacked they going to be a natural freediver. Scientists are learning more and more about “ideal” freedive physiology, and the results are not always intuitive.
Constant weight freediving is a large part of the beginner level course, as it gives students a chance to put together the pieces and kick through to a result. The techniques we learn in constant weight freediving are applicable to recreational freediving, spearfishing, deep snorkelling and just general water comfort. While we do all of our training at a beginner level along a line, this is to benefit the student and provide “training wheels” to encourage consistent technique. After a bit of practice and mastery, the training wheels can be removed, and the newly conditioned freediver is diving with proper technique and achieving incredible feats.
Free Immersion: The unsung hero.
Alongside constant weight in the beginner level course, students will practice another discipline which often becomes the favourite. Free immersion is when students use the line to pull themselves down the water column instead of consuming energy through kicking. At a beginner level, we keep our fins on when we do this, but as we become more comfortable we can leave these fins at the surface to streamline our body, reduce friction, and embrace the freedom this discipline brings. By using only our arms, we conserve energy and allow our body to focus on warming itself up through relaxation and CO2 buildup. At all levels, athletes warm-up at the beginning of the session using free immersion, as it helps to build the Mammalian Dive Reflex, the physiological response our body goes through as we dive to depth.
Additionally, beginners can use free immersion to work on some of the necessary techniques in the PADI Freediver course such as body positioning and equalization. By being able to control our speed of descent, we can easily and repetitively practice equalizing in a bat-like position, with the crown of our head pointing towards the bottom of the ocean. For scuba divers, it’s a weird sensation as we are not used to descending completely upside down. If we are not relaxed in this position, equalization can take some practice. Using the line to descend helps students to work on this important skill. Descending in this bat-like position also takes practice as we re-train ourselves to NOT look where we are going.
There you have it, the four main disciples of freediving at a beginner level. There are more, believe it or not- but these are more advanced disciplines used by more experienced freedivers. For beginner freediver training we focus on these disciplines to master our skills. By progressing comfortably and slowly, we strengthen our foundational skills which will allow for unhindered progress "down the line". Learning the basics is incredibly important in freediving, and sometimes it takes time to recondition our brains. You can trust us though- once you get it, and start to feel it, there is no sport that compares.
Blue Corner Freedive is a PADI Freediver Center on Nusa Lembongan, Bali. We specialize in beginner level training , recreational freediving with Mantas and Fluid Focus Freediving Retreats. Get in touch if you’re curious, and share with friends who are on the fence.