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> “Statistically,” he says, “it's very safe.

Citation needed. In the event described 42 divers competed. On day nine, five divers blacked out. That’s about 12%.

Also, coughing up blood from a torn lung apparently doesn’t disqualify a competitor. If that’s common, that’s another worrying aspect of this.

Yes, they had lots of safety crew present. That may make competitions safer than training, even though there’s more pressure to go for records there.

I wouldn’t call it very safe, though.

Also, there’s a lot of self-reported unverified claims along the lines of “They are secrets that, once revealed, make the divers not just more effective at their craft, they argue, but more effective, conscious, skillful, and thoughtful as human beings” in the article. I think those have about as much truth in them as the claims about learning Latin and Ancient Greek making you a better human being.

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While a blackout sounds horrific and certainly requires an immediate response, it's not necessarily bad. Afaik there are no studies about it, but I would guess a blackout does not result in any long lasting injuries. In the end a blackout is the bodies response to keep you alive just a little longer by focusing on the absolute minimum it takes to do so.

The safety protocols have also evolved over times. Nicks death for example has triggered a rewrite of the rules that would require a medical examination after a blackout or if you cough up blood. This examination can result in a ban from further competing for the next days for example.

Of course it's not a safe sport, it's an extreme sport in an extreme environment. But lots has been learned in the past decades, as it is still a rather "new" sport and if exercised correctly it is rather safe. Also the article just talks about a competition. Most freediving happens either in training or when people do it recreationally. While accidents happen there as well, these are mostly about the lack of safety divers, that's why the first rule of freediving is, never dive alone.

Finally, on your last paragraph, freediving does change your day to day life, at least from my experience. I just do it recreationally, so I'm far from these depths and times Alexey and the others achieve, but the mental control you learn can be applied in many situations.

Blackout underwater is normally game over, especially as it tends to happen at the end of the dive and because you've run out of oxygen.

The reason that competition freedivers don't die as often as they have blackouts is because they have numerous support team members diving with them that are specifically there to rescue them if they lose consciousness.

What may not be entirely clear from the article is that competitive freedivers hyperventilate. Hyperventilation clears the lungs of CO2 and thus delays the breathing reflex that causes the feeling of suffocation, though without significantly increasing the amount of oxygen. Hyperventilating before a dive increases the risk that oxygen will run out before the breathing reflex kicks in. The training that freedivers undergo is to learn their limits and know exactly how long they can last before this happens.

In the text, there's an oblique reference to how Alexey hyperventilates, in the sentence "The breaths fill his enormous lungs" followed later by "Alexey fills his lungs with one great inhalation". "The breaths", plural, because he's taking multiple, deep breaths to clear his lungs of CO2. Then one last breath to push in as much air as he can.

We then read how he keeps checking the time. A major reason for this, left as subtext to the knowing, is that checking the time is how he keeps track of how much oxygen he has left. Since he's suppressed his breathing reflex he has no other indication of how close he is to suffocating.

As should be obvious, the least error here can be fatal. A blackout is lights out, everybody.

Source: I freedive recreationally, without hyperventilating. I love freediving. Can't freedive dead.

> Afaik there are no studies about it, but I would guess a blackout does not result in any long lasting injuries.

That is exact opposite of what I would intuitively guess. I would guess that it is way more likely that blackout means you body is getting injured rather then opposite.

Blacking out while freediving is much different than the type of "blacking out" you normally would associate with sport injuries.

It's an evolved response the body does to conserve oxygen use in the brain. Consciousness shuts off, but the brain is still active. For example, someone who blacks out this way will not get water in their lungs--a part of the brain that is still active keeps your mouth shut so that no water is accidentally inhaled.

Freedivers try to avoid blackouts, but in this context, there are established safety procedures and it is not nearly as bad as you may think.

You're talking about laryngospasm:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laryngospasm

Before laryngospasm occurs water must enter the larynx. At which point, if you 're a few meters under the surface of the sea, you're in the process of drowing.

Think of it this way: if it were safe to lose consciousness underwater, if we had a magickal reflex response that kept us safe- why would anyone ever have to drown?

Forgot to mention if you listen to accounts of blacking out while freediving, it's clearly much different than a physical concussion. People wake up as if they just had a deep nap, with generally no symptoms as the day goes on.

I did not said I think it is like concussion. I said that I find it less likely it does not affect the brain in the long term.

When your body has to shut down some system in order to save your life, I think it's reasonable to assume there will be some damage.

Back when I was practicing to hold my breath for a long period of I time I did some research into this, and it really does look like there's no damage so long as you regain airflow within a few seconds.

It goes against common intuition, but it's not like that's unheard of when it comes to the human body. Look at intermittent fasting for example.

It's a reasonable assumption, but that doesn't have much bearing on whether it's accurate.

Suffocation is bad for you. This is well established.

While the immediate risks are obvious and well-documented, I'm curious to know whether there are any long-term risks associated with lengthy breath-holding such as that undertaken by free divers, even when it doesn't result in a black out.

My gut feeling says yes, but I have absolutely no evidence to back up that and it's pure speculation. Something worthy of further study, perhaps, although it would only affect a minority of the population.

An impressive feat but one I wouldn't personally be undertaking.

While I don't have any hard evidence to back up my claims, I would tend say no. Reason being is that we are mammals and some mammals live in the ocean like seals. Their bodies have the same reaction to diving than ours [0] and it certainly does them no harm. Sure they are more efficient and better adapted, but the underlying physiological principles are the same.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_reflex

The diving reflex is a good point, and it seems there are several defensive mechanism against brain damage whilst holding one's breath. Perhaps I am mistaken.

Quick googling shows that there might be positive aspects to holding your breath, but I imagine one would have to do a deep dive (no pun intended) into the subject matter before reaching a conclusion.

Would you assume fasting, depriving your body of necessary for, is also harmful?

In my experience, it's axiomatic in high-risk sports to understand the difference between "smart crazy" vs "dumb crazy"; everyone knows what it is, but it is rarely described.

One friend best described it as the difference between using knowledge, technology, and/or skill to reliably perform ordinarily dangerous activities, vs. getting away with something by pure dumb luck.

Here the technology is lean (nose clips, lights, fins, cable, alarms) and the knowledge, technique, and skill is extensive, but clearly many can make a career of it.

What you are doing is like staring at the crash statistics for cars, or even racecars, and minimizing the very real and large body of safety knowledge, equipment, and process that reduces the risk to tolerable levels.

And to scoff at how this knowledge makes one "more effective, conscious, skillful, and thoughtful as human beings" is pure ignorance. I can tell you personally (having a healthy dose of this mental training, and great respect for the much further extents achieved by these freedivers) that it makes all the difference in the world - but of course if you have not done it, you literally do not know what you are missing.

(edit: clarity, punctuation)

It depends on how you define safety. And, I think the comparison, here, isn't being made to sitting on a couch (which carries its own health risks) but to other professional sports, or maybe its being compared to the safety of even amateur competition across sports. Elite physical competition always carries some risks of injury (even death) - those have to be balanced against the benefits of competing.

Definitely there are more dangerous sports that we would consider safe (American football, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, etc.), where "safe" is defined as "would encourage, or not admonish, our children from pursuing".

“They are secrets that, once revealed, make the divers not just more effective at their craft, they argue, but more effective, conscious, skillful, and thoughtful as human beings”

If you can suspend your initial disbelief and are willing to do some reading on the topic of breath work, I recommend the writing of James Nestor and of course Wim Hof.

Divers are using these techniques in order to train to hold their breath a long time, but the claims of the other benefits are verifiable and measurable in labs as well.

Well, learning Latin and Ancient Greek definitely makes you a better human being, so that's a bad example...

No it doesn't, it makes you are more learned person. That's not the same as better for any humanistic definition of better.

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