During my recent freedive training trip I saw turtles and was a little sad I didn’t get any photos. I’ve wanted a camera for scuba for a long time anyway and with me wanting to freedive more too, I figured now would be a good time to consider camera options.

I’d initially considered a GoPro purely because this is what all the freedive instructors seem to use that I’ve met. They’re also easy to get hold of where I am which is a key factor and the price point isn’t too steep. However the picture quality seems highly variable- I’ve seen great photos and then I’ve seen photos that look like they were taken on a potato.

I’d also considered an Olympus TG series camera as these are popular with scuba divers and can go pretty deep (60m) assuming you have the correct casing. The camera and case are fairly expensive though, probably $6-800 in total where I am.

I’m open to any options or recommendations.

Hello fellow freedivers!

I just started freediving and I've been trying to do some research on neck weight for freediving, but can't really seem to find good reviews.

1. I was wondering if you guys can help me out by telling me which neck weight is your favorite and why? I was thinking about buying the C4 dyno neck lead or the lobster neck lead... One thing my brother said was that maybe the screws of the C4 neck lead might get rusty while the screws of the lobster neck lead won't?
2. The other question is: neck lead, lead belt or the combination of both?

Thank you so much for your responses!

I’ve watched lots of videos and my instructor from my Level 1 course gave me a balloon and a few drills to try. I can open my mouth and move the back of my tongue up to the roof (I am trying to push it to the soft palette) & (can have my mouth open and do the “K” lock) but I cannot do this when I close my mouth.

I know I am doing something to my jaw because it is tight and it’s an effort to try and close my mouth with my tongue at the roof.

I know this is wrong but I can’t work out how to correct it or more importantly why this is even happening?

Also if anyone has stories of really struggling with equalisation and eventually “getting it” please share for inspiration.

Can anyone teach me how to get my breathold longer I can do 40 seconds but then I just panic and can't relax how do I get over this thankyou !

Did anybody else experience this

Please share your experience and any info you have thanks :)

First off, I'm only diving 15ft max atm. Second the water temp at the lowest, is 70° My right hand ends up completely numb about an hour into diving. It starts with the tip of my index finger, travels to my middle finger and then goes down into my palm and eventually I loose feeling in my right hand entirely and inturn dexterity in my fingers so my dive is over for 20 minutes or so until my fingers regain feeling, rinse repeat. I'm diving for shells so I need my stupid numb fingers. What gives? Also if it's worth anything my hands go completely white, but both of them do that and my left hand has no issues.

Hi guys as I'm newbie in the worl of freediving I have some silly questions for freediving.

I] Can someone dive into the challenger deep if no pls eloborate.

II] Why divers have to wait if they dive below 260 meters decompression.

This is the monthly thread to ask any questions or discuss ideas you may have about freediving. The aim is to introduce others to new ways of thinking, approaching training or bringing up old basic techniques that still work the best and more.

Check out our FAQ, you might find your answer there or can ask better questions!

Need gear advice?

Many people starting out with freediving come for recommendations on what equipment to purchase.

As we are starting out to introduce regular monthly community threads again, we might add a designated one for purchasing questions and advice. Until then, feel free to comment here(Remember, when asking for purchase advice, please be specific about your needs i.e. water temperature you want to dive in, so that people can help you quicker)

Monthly Community Threads:

1st of the Month Official Discussion Thread

Your feedback on current events in the sub:

We hosted our first ever AMA! Was it advertised enough for you? Did you find it helpful? Would you change anything? Videoconference which will be recorded & posted elsewhere?

Stuff we are planning:

• updating the community banner for r/freediving - we are planning to host a submission-based challenge for members of the sub to represent the sport (details to be announced)

• writing better wiki's for common info on freediving - YOU can contribute!

• new topics for similar events like the AMA we just hosted - please contact the mods for your suggestions

Please consider that events and their organisation require time and effort to make them happen!

~ Freediving Mods (and ModBot)

Does anybody know of a wetsuit brand that offers 5mm 2 piece wetsuits with Long John/Long Jane option as a bottom for WOMEN?

I searched the whole web as I specifically want the long John option but all I find is for men. Like I see companies selling Long Jane wetsuits but then you cannot go and purchase the top part by itself.

Any ideas?

Hello Freediving friends - I'm working with a wonderful group of spearos in the Great Lakes region to expand freedive game-focused (walleye, whitefish, trout, etc) spearfishing in the Great Lakes waters/states. We would really appreciate your signature on our petition here: https://www.spearfishwisconsin.com/

Thanks to the dedicated work of a rad gentleman and skilled diver named Jonathan Durtka over the last few years, Michigan recently opened up a program to allow spearfishing of game fish and we are working on petitioning Wisconsin to follow suit.

The Great Lakes states are full of beautiful bodies of water and delicious game fish are plentiful. Lake Superior and Lake Michigan (along with the other Great Lakes) are essentially inland oceans with untapped freediving and spearfishing potential - we would love to get more people engaged with these spectacular environments and involved in this awesome sport!

Looking into buying either the Suunto D5, Garmin G1 or Atmos Mission 2. Does anyone have any knowledge on any of these watches or any other recommendation. Looking for one that I can use for casual scuba diving aswell as every day use (heart rate, sleep, V02 Max ect)

Hi all! I'm planning to visit Dahab in April to do 1-2 weeks of freediving.

I already visited the place back in 2013 during the Arab Spring and was literally the only Westener xD had a great time thanks to the Egyptian hospitality.

I know there are plenty of posts about Dahab, but I'm still not sure what to expect in terms of crowds. I'd love to connect with people on land but I also want to have a feeling of freedom in the water. Does it feel like you share the ocean with loads of people or just a bunch of other divers? And what are the differences between the diving schools in that regard?

Also would anyone suggest to book courses ahead or rather do it once you're there?

In my current study, I analyzed AIDA and CMAS competition data to present comprehensive descriptive statistics on freediving disciplines for the first time. I think even the pure distributions are interesting for many divers, as they allow a relatively fair and comprehensive comparison. These values are now available for the three disciplines STA, DYN and CWT. This can be used, for example, to show how good your own results are compared to the population. It should be noted, of course, that freediving is not about better or worse and that safety and fun are the most important personal factors. These analyses should therefore be seen as complementary to the previous AIDA “rankings”.
Furthermore, comprehensive correlations and predictions of the three disciplines are now available. These analyses are very useful for identifying your own strengths and deficits, for example, questions such as: I have a STA time of 3 minutes, what DYN can I expect? can be answered in this way. It should be emphasized that these are average values and deviations are natural.
Finally, I also looked at gender effects. It is interesting to note that these differences are very small, especially in the middle and lower performance range. The results also show that only a very small proportion of the differences in the results can be attributed to gender. All descriptive results are available separately by gender for more information.

Finally, my thanks to the whole forum and @Mesapholis for helping me find a journal. Unfortunately, my experience has been that many sports journals are not interested in freediving, but luckily there is at least one exception. Feel free to contact me if you are also interested in scientific evaluations or are currently working on your own projects.
The study can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1556/1020.2025.00014
Additional graphical analyses can be found here: https://github.com/fbittmann/replication_freediving

EDIT: As an additional and important note: all these results stem from individuals who competed in freediving competitions. These results only consist of PBs. So the findings are not perfectly representative of the average freediver but a positively selected group with potentially better results than the average.

Haven’t dived in manly yet and i don’t know where to go to see the best wildlife just wondering if there is a dive map which shows where i can see the turtles and cuttlefish cause it’s a large dive site.

Depth doesn’t read exactly 20m due to my arm being in the wrong position when I hit the stopper :(

Hi guys. What freedive watch do you recommend? On a daily basis I use Garmin fenix but it doesn’t have any freedive functions. Are there any multi sport watches that I can use for both freediving and triathlon/trekking or shall I go for the separate gear for underwater? If so, are there any budget solutions that work well?

Feels like I’m posting quite a lot for the past few days, so sorry if I’m spamming this subreddit 😅

This time, I’m curious whether you can get contractions even when your glottis is closed.

Not sure if this is just me, but I seem to be unable to have contractions when my glottis is closed.

By this, I don’t mean that my urge to breathe becomes less. On the contrary, my urge to breathe increases much faster compared to if I had left my glottis opened and let the contractions come.

To experiment, I did an FRC dry static. I left my glottis opened and waited until my 10th contraction, and then closed my glottis (without tensing my abdominal or any other part of my body). Then, as soon as I close my glottis, contraction stopped while urge-to-breathe became super high.

This took around 1:40 and my final %SpO2 was around 70%. Not that these matter for the question, but just trying to say that the initial 10 contractions aren’t fake ones.

So the question is, is this just me? Or is there some physiological reasons why contractions cannot happen when the glottis is closed?

I've been diving for 5-6 years now and always had long rails but recently my crew seems to be migrating more and more towards very short or no rails at all.

Has anyone made the transition from rails to no rails or vice versa? I interpret that you have a softer blade with no rails but i wonder about swimming in currents having propulsion issues. Thoughts?

The CWT surprised me, but it turns out I’m faster than I think I am descending!

Hey everyone, I am relocating to Cozumel in Mid February and was wondering if anyone had a room to rent out for a reasonable price while I find something more permanent? I'm 24 years old and will be working as a freedive instructor. I like to think I'm easy to get along with! So please message me if you have or know anyone that would be interested. Thanks

For background, the normal CO2/O2 trainings never really worked for me.

What really works for me is a slightly modified/extended “fxxing glottis”, where I do the following two tables consecutively, with 1 min recovery breaths in between:

First table (= fxxing glottis):

• 30 sec RV hold
• 35 sec RV hold
• 40 sec RV hold
• … (5 sec increments)
• 60 sec RV hold

Second table

• FRC hold until 1st contraction
• FRC hold until 10th contraction
• FRC hold until 20th contraction
• FRC hold until 30th contraction

The goal for the first table for me is to delay my first contraction, whereas the second table is to get used to contractions and make them feel less painful.

Both work pretty well for me, so at the beginning of the first table, I feel like I get close to urge-to-breathe within 30 seconds, whereas by the end of the first table, I feel like I can go longer than a minute comfortably without any contractions. This really helps with my full lung static as well in terms of delaying the first contraction.

For the second table, I feel like contractions are super painful for the first two iterations, whereas by the end of it, I feel like the first 20 are manageable.

But then, my question is whether this kind of delayed contraction and/or CO2 tolerance can be (semi-)permanently gained. I’ve been doing this for months, maybe 2-4 times a week, but every time I do this, I feel like I’m starting over again.

Even though I do the above table today, by tomorrow, I will still get my urge-to-breathe by 30 seconds when I start the first table, and I will still feel like the first few contractions are super painful when I’m starting the second table.

So for now, I feel like the table above is more like a trick that I can do before my dive to make my dives more comfortable, but I don’t see it as “training” that can bring gains over time, at least not the same way as how you lift weights and can gain muscle over time.

Hence I’d like to ask for your experience. Do you actually feel like your CO2 tolerance permanently increased due to those tables, or whatever training you do?

I naturally managed to figure out constant pressure mouthfill in about 10 minutes of trying, but the issue I've been having since - when going below 30m - is that after a couple of dives my voice is a bit hoarse, I feel like clearing my throat and - when I do - I often see a tiny bit of bright red blood.

Given that I've not had that much time to actually do many dives since figuring out mouthfill, I'm still a bit worried because I can't understand the root cause of the issue. Could it be a bit of a throat squeeze, even if 30m seems very shallow for that. Could it be that I'm holding too much pressure and tension and this is overexerting the glottis? Since then I've worked dry on non-constant pressure mouthfill which should reduce any strain on the soft tissues, I guess?

Does anyone have any ides or has had a similar experience? I'm gearing up to start diving "deep" again and really feel like this is a huge limiting factor for me right now. Thanks to anyone who is able to chime in!

— Edit —

Before this post confuses others, my calculation below was wrong. Refer to NixDiveMask@‘s comment down below for the correct calculation.

It’s a bit embarrassing that I got this wrong, but I’m glad that I uploaded this so that I can correct myself. So, thanks! 😆

— Original —

A rough calculation shows that if you don’t equalize from 60m in depth and reach 100m, the volume difference is:

1/7 - 1/11 = 0.0519 = 5.19%

Compare that to going from the surface down to 1m:

1/1 - 1/1.1 = 0.0909 = 9.09%

This assumes ideal gas + constant temperature, but I’m assuming the numbers would still be reasonable.

So from the above calculation, even if you were to not equalize at all from 60m in depth and kept on going until 100m (or even 130m for that matter), the volume difference would be still smaller than going to 1m in depth from the surface.

Given that almost no one hurts their ears by just going down to 1m in depth without equalization, I’m curious if one would be okay if they didn’t equalize from 60m to 100m.

One extra factor that I can think of is that surface to 1m is just for a few seconds so it’s unlikely that people will hurt their ears, but if you’re free falling for 40 seconds from 60m to 100m, the small damage can accumulate over time?

I personally prefer constant pressure, so I never stop equalizing as I’m descending, but I got curious whether my logic is theoretically correct or if I’m missing something.

My girlfriend and I recently did a PADI level 1 freediving course. We both got a lot out of it, both in terms of learning safety systems and also getting comfortable diving deeper.

Following the course, we did a snorkel together recently. I was a little more vigilant than before, after learning about the importance of the buddy system. Mainly I was watching from the surface for the shallower dives (2-5m). When it was my turn to dive, I was getting her attention so she at least knew where I was. On deeper dives we were diving down to meet the diver at 5m, watching their ascent etc.

After a while she got a bit frustrated with this, feeling like we were spending most of the time watching each other rather than snorkelling.

It's got me thinking about how to approach snorkelling with a buddy, especially when the dives are short and shallow. On one hand, I can see that it is annoying to be watch out for each other all the time. On the other, I would at least like my buddy to look around periodically and know where I am. Do you use a full freediving type buddy approach, or something more pared back? Do you approach snorkelling differently to freediving?

Okay, so this is admittedly a bit of a strangely worded question, but what I would like to know is this: how deep would I be able to go when my static is 3:00? My actual static PB is 3:51, but for safety reasons I would set the cutoff at 3:00.

Since actively diving requires more oxygen than static, what depth could I (hypothetically speaking) expect to reach with a static of 3:00, assuming good finning technique and no problems with equalisation?

My actual depth PB is only about 9 meters because of issues with EQ, but should I be able to overcome these issues, do you think a depth of 25m would be feasible?

I’m in the NOLA area for work for the next month and would love to practice equalization upside down in the pool! I found a pool in NOLA that will let me train, but I need a buddy. It’s 16 feet deep. I’m super new to freediving and need to focus on relaxing and clearing my ears.

But in general any tips on how you mastered equalizing upside down I’d appreciate it! I’ve been practicing dry but want to master doing it in the water when anxiety is a bit higher.

TIA! 🤿🧜🏾‍♀️🌊

I’ve got a stupid grin plastered on my face right now because I’m damn happy (and easily pleased?). Currently doing freedive training in the Philippines at Batangas and finally broke a PB for STA and DYN.

Turns out the main key for me was simply relaxing and getting myself into a really positive headspace whilst I was in the water. In three STA attempts I managed 1m.47s, then 2m.05s and finally 2min 30sec. I was actually enjoying the whole thing of just floating around on the surface.

Then we did DYN which I haven’t done since my cert, at least not in the pool, and within a few practice lengths, I was pretty easily doing 25-30m without too much effort.

I feel like a good freediver now. I actually like freediving more than scuba now. :D

Hey guys, I’m currently in Thailand and looking to do some more free diving in either Indonesia or the Philippines. I’ll be leaving Thailand early-mid Feb and staying for a couple weeks. Thought I’d see if there was anyone in either of those countries that wants to do some diving. Pm me if you’re interested, preferably sooner as I still have to book my tickets.