Carlos Coste

After all the talk about holding your breath under water and the mental battle going on in your head while submerged, i found a stunning video about the amazing freediver Carlos Coste.
Venezuelan born Coste is a well known name in the sport of freediving and holds numerous world records. The video is from his Guinness World Record, "the longest apnea in a cave". In the caves of Dos Ojos in Mexico, he performes a linear dive of 150m on only one breath of air. The stretch he dives, is completely flooded and offers no opportunity to come up for air. That not being challenging enough, the cave is a labyrinth of different caves and tunnels and he therefore holds a flashlight at the end of his streamlined position to guide him. Of course he has a lot of safety divers to guide him through and to come to his rescue if something should go wrong, but that doesn't change the fact that the guy got some seriously big "cojones"! The mental challenge alone is huge. Imagine yourself panic half way through with 75m to go and no opportunity to take a breath.
He completes the dive in 2 minutes and 32 seconds. Notice how calm he looks going through the maze. He doesn't race through the cave, which would make him fail, but remains calm, with steady movements to reduce the physical impact on his ability to hold his breath for so long.
As the video tells, Carlos does a lot of freediving and training in a pool to prepare for these kinds of challenges. But he also tells us that he does a lot of powertraining, cardiovascular training, yoga and of course a lot of mental training. Notice how he uses a special technique, that allows him to compress big amounts of air in his lungs, just before he submerges. As i said earlier, don't attempt doing some of these special breathing techniques unless you have a good amount of experience with freediving and without someone watching you.
/Kasper