The 4-Hour Body_ An Uncommon Guide to Ra - Timothy Ferriss [186]
After taking your big inhalations for the time trials, do not let any air out whatsoever. Holding it all will improve times and is important protective training for water-based breath holding. Why? If you pass out in the water (not good), you want the uncontrolled release of bubbles to indicate to those supervising you that you’ve passed out.
It is easier to hold your breath if you haven’t eaten for four to six hours. It is also easier to hold your breath if you have less body mass to feed oxygen. David will purposefully lose 30+ pounds during serious training to improve his lung-to-body volume ratio.
Remember: don’t be stupid. Never practice this in water.
Better still, leave it to the professionals altogether.
TOOLS AND TRICKS
David Blaine’s TEDMED Talk (www.fourhourbody.com/blaine) This is a recording of David’s emotionally charged and fascinating TED presentation on magic and his preparation for a record-breaking 17+ minutes underwater.
Think these techniques can be taken lightly, practiced on your own in water? Think again and don’t commit suicide. Watch 10:40 in the above video and then watch it again: that’s what near-death looks like. Then watch it a third time. It will give you a healthy respect for what a mistake can cost you: your life. Do not attempt any of this in water (even if it’s just your face in water). If you pass out, drowning in a few inches is the same as drowning in the deep end of a pool.
Performance Freediving: The Official School of Kirk Krack (www.fourhourbody.com/krack) Kirk Krack is the professional freediving trainer who prepared David Blaine for his record. Kirk has worked with eight current world-record holders. His beginner course (which is held over two and a half days) includes personalized instruction from world-record holders and a one-to-four instructor/student ratio. As captain of Team Canada for the Canadian Association of Freediving and Apnea, he has successfully coached and managed the women’s team to two first-place finishes at the last two world championships, and his experience in technical diving has helped him achieve depths of 152 meters (500 feet).
Manual of Freediving: Underwater on a Single Breath by Umberto Pelizzari and Stefano Tovaglieri (www.fourhourbody.com/freediving) This is the freediver’s bible. It’s a comprehensive manual on how to hold your breath, dive deeper, and swim underwater longer. The book includes illustrations of underwater exercises, finning techniques, and selected yoga postures to enhance lung capacity.
PowerLung Sport (www.fourhourbody.com/powerlung) This hand-held air-restricting device improves breathing endurance and is popular among not only swimmers but also long-distance runners, high- altitude climbers, singers, and even asthmatics. It’s great for travel, and for training around injuries.
Static Apnea Training Tables (www.fourhourbody.com/apnea) Customizable tables used by aspiring freedivers to safely practice apnea when out of the water.
The Lung Vacuuming Technique (www.ftrain.com/lungvacuuming.html) This 20-second lung reboot is used by opera singers to regulate breathing. Useful for both sports training and minimizing stage fright.
End of Chapter Notes
5. I know nothing of this type of behavior, of course.
ON LONGER AND
BETTER LIFE
LIVING FOREVER
Vaccines, Bleeding, and
Other Fun
There is nothing in biology yet found that indicates the inevitability of death.
—Richard Feynman, co-recipient of 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics
Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.
—Socrates
This will be the shortest chapter on life-extension ever written.
Let it begin, as all good short chapters do, with a story of two monkeys: Canto and Owen. Housed at the University of Wisconsin, these two rhesus monkeys are as close to identical as possible, with one exception. Canto is on a diet.
Specifically,