Thursday, March 28, 2024
FreedivingCrossfit Encouraging Deadly Hyperventilation As Part Of Training

Crossfit Encouraging Deadly Hyperventilation As Part Of Training

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Updated: 18:29 UTC/GMT 13th August

Our friend Roman Castro from SpearoBlog has brought to our attention a potentially dangerous and deadly pool training technique on their Facebook page and Twitter.

The athlete in question – Ben Smith who is an elite crossfit athlete – is seen to be hyperventilating and then swimming a length underwater.  The acronym EMOM means “Every Minute On the Minute” which encourages athletes to continue this exercise as quickly as possible and repeat every minute with no or little rest.

Freediving safety basics show that with hyperventilation and no rest period will lead to Shallow Water Blackout Hypoxic Blackout – which if practicing by yourself can be fatal.

Elite athletes with training, aware of the dangers and supervised properly (as it seems Ben was in this case) are not the danger – the concern from the Freediving community is encouraging hyperventilation and then swimming consecutive lengths of a pool with little or no training or supervision is designed to end in tragedy.  Proper education and awareness of risks is what we would like to see from Crossfit.

RELATED: What Is Hyperventilation And Why Is It Such A Bad Idea?

The video has garnered 600 comments on Facebook already, many from Freedivers explaining how dangerous the video and exercise is.

If you are concerned about this video you should respond to the Facebook and Twitter posts and direct people to ShallowWaterBlackoutPrevention.org as well as your local Freediving class provider.

Stephan Whelan
Stephan Whelanhttps://www.deeperblue.com
Stephan is the Founder of DeeperBlue.com. His passion for the underwater world started at 8 years old with a try-dive in a hotel pool on holiday that soon formulated into a lifelong love affair with the oceans. In 1996 he set up DeeperBlue.com and has grown the site to be the most popular diving website and community in the world.

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