Talk:Freediving
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Mammalian Diving Reflex
[edit]The Mammalian diving reflex article linked to from within this article mentions three factors as part of the reflex. The Free-diving article mentions a fourth, Splenic contraction: Releasing red blood cells carrying oxygen. Should splenic contraction be added to Mammalian diving reflex, or should it be removed from free-diving?
Proposal
[edit]The initial description and extended description doesn’t completely match. While I do favor the Claude Chapuis kind of freediving, I do think that it is too far fetched to classify it as a type and leave other sub species out of the discription. The following text is an proposal to improve the initial description and the extended description. Comments and a critical look to the grammar is highly appreciated.
Description
[edit]Freediving refers to a technique that is used with various aquatic activities. While in general all aquatic activities that include breath-hold diving might be classified as a part of freediving, some sports are more accepted than others. Examples of recognised freediving activities are (non-)competitive freediving, (non-) competive spearfishing, freedive photography and mermaid shows. Less recognised examples of freediving include, but is not limited too, synchronised swimming, underwater rugby, underwater hockey, underwater hunting other than spearfishing and snorkeling. The discussion remains if freediving is only a synonym for breath-hold diving or it does describes a specific group of underwater activities. Freediving is often strongly associated with compettive breath hold diving or *Competitive Apnea*. It is considered being an extreme sport where divers atempt to attain great depths, times or distances on a single breath and without the assistance of breathing apparatus like SCUBA. The following remainder of this article will only discuss competitive freediving as an athletic sport.
Competitive Freediving
[edit]Competitive freediving is currently governed by two world associations AIDA International and CMAS. Most types of competitive freediving have in common that it is an individual sport based on the best individual achievement. Exceptions on this rule is the bi-annually World Championschip for Teams, held by AIDA International, where the combined score of the team members makes up the teams total points.
There are currently nine disciplines used by official governing body’s and a dozen disciplines that are only practiced locally. In this article, the recognised disciplines of AIDA International and CMAS will be described. All disciplines can be done by both men as woman and while done outdoor, no differences in the environment between records is recognised any longer. The disciplines of {{AIDA International]] can be done both in competition as in an record attempt with the exception of Variable Weight and No limits who are both only done as record attempts.
Following official disciplines are recognised by (AIDA), (CMAS) or both:
Pool Disciplines• Static Apnea is timed breath holding and is usually attempted in a pool. (AIDA)• Dynamic Apnea with fins. This is underwater swimming for in a pool for distance. For this discipline the athlethe can choose if he uses bi-vins or the monovin. (AIDA), (CMAS)• Dynamic Apnea without fins. This is underwater swimming for in a pool for distance without any swimming aids like fins. (AIDA)Depth DisciplinesThe depth of the athlethe is for all AIDA disciplines announced before the dive. This is accepted practice for both competitions as record attempts.• Constant Weight with fins. The athlete has to dive to the depth following a guideline he or she is not allowed to actively use during the dive. The ‘constant weight’ (“poid constant”) refers to the fact that the athlete is not allowed to drop the weights during the dive. Both bi-vin as mono-vin can be used during this discipline (AIDA).• Constant Weight without fins follows the identical rules as Constant Weight with fins, except no swimming aids as fins are allowed. This discipline is the youngest discipline within competitive freediving and is recognised by AIDA International since 2003.(AIDA)• Free Immersion is the discipline where the athlete uses the guideline to pull him or herself down to depth and back to the surface. It is known for its ease compared with the Constant Weight disciplines, while it is still not allowed to release weights (AIDA).• Variable Weight is a record discipline that uses a weighted sled for descent. Athlethe returns to the surface by pulling themselves up along a line or swim while using their fins (AIDA).• No Limits is a record discipline that allows the atlethe to use any means of breath-hold diving to depth and return to the surface as long as an guideline is used to measure the distance. Most divers use an weighted sled to dive down and use an air filled bag to return to the surface (AIDA).• "The Cube" is also known as "Jump Blue" and is a discipline where an athlethe has to descend to 15 meters and have to swim as far as possible in a cubic form of 15 x 15 meters. (CMAS) Each organisation has its own rules on recognising an attempt. These can be found on the website from the respective organisations.
NLT (No Limit)
[edit]From AIDA web site: NLT (No Limit) ... not NLT No-limits ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.237.30.70 (talk) 21:47, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
Sector No Limits and Sector are Italian wristwatch and diving watch brands by homonymous company, this has nothing to do with AIDA International's NLT (No Limit).
Restructure and split out lists/tables of records
[edit]I suggest that the article should be restructured to provide a general description of freediving topics in summary style, and split out the details of records to articles that focus on the competitive events ad disciplines. There is a lot more that can be said in general terms that is currently overshadowed by the big tabular collections of data, and I think that a split of this kind will make both kinds of information more accessible to the various readers. In some cases there may already be articles where record details will be more appropriate. In those cases a split and merge approach should be good. The current title should be the broad coverage of the associated topics. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 15:58, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
- Fully support: articles should be articles, and lists should be lists, and at 104kb in size the article is currently WP:TOOBIG. ~2026-38253-03 (talk) 11:03, 26 July 2026 (UTC)
- I note that nobody appears to be against this proposal. ~2026-38253-03 (talk) 09:33, 27 July 2026 (UTC)
Skin diving is not free diving
[edit]Lede say the two terms means the same thing. They are related but are not identical. Skin dives is mostly leisurely surface swimming to search and get into position to make brief duck-dives to look closer at marine life. Whereas Freediving is minimal or no strenuous swimming and is a competitive discipline; focusing on maximizing the depth or time records. Typically skin diving doesn't rely on deep equalization methods. Since they use short brief dives, they are safer and less likely to lead to shallow water blackouts unlike freediving which goes to push the limits - using specialized long fins, nose clips and advanced pressure-equalization skills. So they are not the same. Plus there are sources that feel the need to explain the nuances as the distinct terms are still useful to identify two different things.
Skin diving's goal is on finding and observing fish. There's no need to hold breath as long as possible. It is more in the middle ground between leisurely snorkeling vs hyper competitive freediving. To visually understand, this is skin diving below and is hardly the same thing as freediving.
JaredMcKenzie (talk) 11:47, 28 July 2026 (UTC)
- Hello Jared. Your first and third references is the same article published in two different websites on which that author publishes articles. Your second reference has no author and should be discounted. The fourth reference has an author. So you have two sources that support what you are saying, therefore you are encouraged to add this information into the article so that readers are clear. Clarifying an article's definition ought to appear in the lede, in my opinion. Regards, ~2026-38253-03 (talk) 23:47, 28 July 2026 (UTC)
- Hi, I was actually considering making a new article. Cuz terms are not really interchangeable. I noticed expert orgs like PADI also treat it as a separate course from freediving. because they are very different in intent, risk and technique. Training orgs seem to share the consensus that Skin diving is way more shallow and brief in breath-holds (safer) than Freediving - that is in a league of its own with more focused and formalized disciplines on achieving max depth such as over 30ms. So am not sure whether to move it to Snorkeling page as "advanced Snorkeling" or explain on this article why it's not even part of today's freediving standardized competitive disciplines but sits well away from that spectrum. Skin diving seem a distinct enough concept to potentially support its own Wikipedia article and shouldn't be a re-direct, tho others may disagree hence why I am raising it on talk first. JaredMcKenzie (talk) 00:36, 29 July 2026 (UTC)
- What is perhaps needed in the present article is an examination of how the terms "freediving" and "skin diving" have developed since the mid twentieth century. They were originally virtual synonyms at the outset, covering any kind of underwater swimming, scuba or breath-hold, distinguishing that pursuit, from the seabed-walking "hard-hat" variety. The term "freediving" was simply a translation of the French "plongée libre", while "skin-diving" was the English version. "Freediving" has gradually evolved over recent decades to cover the more extreme and competitive genre of breath-hold diving, while "snorkelling" suggests a more surface-based pursuit with occasional shallow plunges underwater. As for "skin diving", I get the impression that the term may have narrowed during the 1960s to cover breath-hold diving only, but there was still something obsolescent about it, which makes me wonder whether it should have simply been allowed to fall into disuse rather than be resurrected in the new millennium to denote a sort of intermediate underwater activity between modern free-diving and snorkelling. Helmardine (talk) 05:35, 29 July 2026 (UTC)
- It is an interesting history but the words no longer practically mean what they used to. PADI is very influential. They still teach those terms and how I first came across them a few years ago. I guess there needs to be a dedicated term for specifically recreational surface swimming with shallow and brief dives, and it cannot be called snorkeling or freediving - so I think that's why the term is still widely used by training sources as they find it has pedagogical value. Regardless it is clear there is no universal agreement on terms. Generally historically and in dictionary definitions, skin diving are synonyms for any breath holding activity - but modern divers and training agencies often separate them by depth, breath times, and intent. The lede should ideally reflect that reality at minimum. JaredMcKenzie (talk) 00:26, 30 July 2026 (UTC)
- What is perhaps needed in the present article is an examination of how the terms "freediving" and "skin diving" have developed since the mid twentieth century. They were originally virtual synonyms at the outset, covering any kind of underwater swimming, scuba or breath-hold, distinguishing that pursuit, from the seabed-walking "hard-hat" variety. The term "freediving" was simply a translation of the French "plongée libre", while "skin-diving" was the English version. "Freediving" has gradually evolved over recent decades to cover the more extreme and competitive genre of breath-hold diving, while "snorkelling" suggests a more surface-based pursuit with occasional shallow plunges underwater. As for "skin diving", I get the impression that the term may have narrowed during the 1960s to cover breath-hold diving only, but there was still something obsolescent about it, which makes me wonder whether it should have simply been allowed to fall into disuse rather than be resurrected in the new millennium to denote a sort of intermediate underwater activity between modern free-diving and snorkelling. Helmardine (talk) 05:35, 29 July 2026 (UTC)
- Hi, I was actually considering making a new article. Cuz terms are not really interchangeable. I noticed expert orgs like PADI also treat it as a separate course from freediving. because they are very different in intent, risk and technique. Training orgs seem to share the consensus that Skin diving is way more shallow and brief in breath-holds (safer) than Freediving - that is in a league of its own with more focused and formalized disciplines on achieving max depth such as over 30ms. So am not sure whether to move it to Snorkeling page as "advanced Snorkeling" or explain on this article why it's not even part of today's freediving standardized competitive disciplines but sits well away from that spectrum. Skin diving seem a distinct enough concept to potentially support its own Wikipedia article and shouldn't be a re-direct, tho others may disagree hence why I am raising it on talk first. JaredMcKenzie (talk) 00:36, 29 July 2026 (UTC)