Why can’t I equalise, and what is this Frenzel equalisation I hear of?
Learning to freedive a little deeper, can be a frustrating experience for some, particularly if you have everything else under control. You’ve worked hard on your breath-hold, you’re duckdiving smoothly, you’re streamlined, in control and ready to go… however somewhere between 5-10m deep, you just can’t go any deeper. Your ears won’t let you.
Sound familiar?
If any one of these is happening to you; the following instructional guide might just help:
You can’t ‘pop’ your ears once you get to 5-10m
Only one ear pops, somewhere between 5-10m
You can dive on an angle or have to re-invert on your way down, but when swimming vertically, you can’t equalise
You can equalise in the feet first position, but not head down
You can only equalise very slowly
You’ve never tried freediving, but are doing some homework before you start
If you’ve done one of our courses, you’ve likely worked with an instructor to identify what’s going wrong, however you might need a little more practice to get things right. There can be many reasons that what you’re doing isn’t quite working, so in this blog we will take you through some of those problems, step by step, and also how we can try to fix them.
Firstly, remember that you’re not alone. Many students will run into similar hurdles; and those who haven’t yet hit these challenges might find they reach obstacles at a slightly deeper depth. The important part is to take time and be gentle with the experience. The better you know the muscles in your mouth, the more likely you will be to co-ordinate them in the right way when we need them to. Practice and persistence will eventually work, and as proof, some of our students who were stuck, like you, at 5-10m, now work for us as instructors.
Before we get into Frenzel technique (which will take you to the depths you’re hoping for); let’s look at what equalisation is, and why what you’re doing may not be working.
As we descend into the ocean, the water above us increases the pressure on our body. This means that the airspaces inside our body also have increased pressure being applied to them. As pressure increases on those airspaces, that gas is compressed, and it now occupies a smaller volume. Such is the relationship between pressure and volume, that if we took 1L of air from the surface and started swimming down with it; when we reached 10m it would be compressed to half a litre.
Now think about all the airspaces in your body, and what they would look like at 10m deep. Your lungs now have half the air volume, your sinus cavities - half the air volume; the air inside your eustachian tubes (which lead from your ear drum to the space behind your nose) – half the volume. Importantly, we are going to focus on what happens to your eustachian tubes and our lungs as we work through equalisation, as this is where the majority of the obstacles come from.
Part of your eustachian tube runs through bone, and makes this chamber rigid, except that at the end of this chamber is our eardrum, a semi flexible skin. You can imagine that in the example where we are descending to 10m, if we lost half the volume in the rigid part of the eustachian tube, it would stretch that drum skin right in as the volume shrinks, which is of course, what creates the pain in the ears that stops us going deeper.
*please never try to push through the pain, as you can damage or even rupture your eardrums if you do*
So what do we need to do?
We need to replace the air volume which is being lost, with air of the same (or greater) pressure as the water on the outside of the ear (equalising). If we do this continuously, we won’t ever flex the ear drum past what is comfortable. Let’s look at how you’re already doing it.
Exercise: ‘pop’ your ears, using the ‘Valsalva method’.
- Take a breath in
- Pinch your nose, and while keeping the nostrils pinched closed, try to strongly exhale through your nostrils
- If you hear any noise (people can hear different sounds, such as a “thhtd,” or a “crackle” or a soft “thhhh” any internal sound at all really) then you have ‘popped’ or equalised your ears. ‘Popping’ does not mean a bang, and it’s not necessarily very loud.
This method of equalisation requires ‘breathing pressure’ where we squeeze the air in our lungs, by constricting it with our diaphragm and chest cavity, the same way we do when we breath. It’s an easy and effective method while our lungs are full, however, if this is the way you usually equalise, it’s likely one of the reasons you’re stopping somewhere between 5-10m deep and can’t go further.
Lets test if this is how you do it normally
- Place one hand on your stomach as close as you can to your ribs and apply a small amount of pressure
- Fully exhale (as much as you can) and then take a few seconds to relax all the muscles in your stomach
- Using your other hand, pinch your nose and attempt to equalise
If you felt your stomach muscles tighten up, even the slightest amount, then you are using Valsalva (or a combination – with your throat open) and will have difficulties as you start to dive deeper.
Let me explain:
The closer our lungs are to completely full, the higher the pressure inside them (transpulmonary pressure) and even small squeezes can increase the pressure to a point where our ears pop (which is what you just did). However, the lower our lung volume becomes, the lower the pressure inside them, and in this state our lungs become highly distensible. That is to say, that when our lungs are only half full, small changes of pressure can result in large changes of volume (the tissue is very, very easily stretched at lower volumes) and conversely, you would have to create a larger change in volume to achieve a small amount of pressure.
Above water, the pressure outside our ears is not very high, so we don’t have to create much pressure to push air inside them. However, remember what happens to the pressure on the outside of our ears, and to the volume of our air spaces as we dive deeper?
As we descend, the air in our lungs reduces in volume. This also decreases the transpulmonary pressure, and increases the distensibility of the lung tissue. We now have to make larger and larger changes in volume, to create the same pressure to pop our ears, and with the reducing volume available (because it’s compressed), eventually we will reach a depth where the flexibility of our rib cage, and the extent to which our diaphragm can move, is not enough to create the pressure to pop our ears. For most people, this happens somewhere between 5-10m, however can be shallower, and also slightly deeper depending on the individual.
At this point we need to learn a new way to equalise, that doesn’t require squeezing our lungs, or using our ‘breathing muscles’ and this can take some dedication and practice. In essence, if your throat is open, and your lungs are connected to the actions trying to create pressure, we’re stuck here until we stop doing that.
So how do we do that?
Well… by getting to know, YOU.
No amount of watching videos, looking at diagrams, or reading blogs (like this one) will help you overcome your challenges, unless you take the time to connect your mind to your muscles (co-ordination). In order to manipulate things in just the right way, we firstly need to know what we are moving, how to do it repetitively, and what it feels like to do it when we have to isolate other muscles at the same time. Some behaviours, like using our breathing muscles to equalise, have become so engrained, that these habits seem to constantly sabotage our attempts to learn something new.
Learning to frenzel is as much about learning new muscle co-ordination as it is about ‘un-learning’ old behaviours. Which is what I find students struggle with, as the most difficult challenge. Remember, muscle memory is built up over time, so once you learn a movement, practice, practice, practice until you forget what you used to do, and are doing the new action without thinking.
Step 1:
Get to know your tongue:
- Open your jaw wide, pushing your tongue out as far as you can over your bottom teeth.
- Curl your tongue if you can, up to touch the roof of your mouth, and as far back as you can. Take the time to feel the different parts of your mouth; the skin behind your teeth, the hard central mound of your mouth, the soft skin at the back (this is your soft palate).
It will be important later on, to know if parts of your tongue are touching the roof of your mouth, so don’t skip over this step too quickly.
- Extend the exercise by using different parts of your tongue to touch the roof of your mouth. Tap the tip of your tongue, right behind your teeth, then relax your tongue as much as you can and repeat (your tongue should be almost flat while relaxed).
o This is what is referred to as the “T-lock” or the shape our tongue sits in, when we pronounce the letter “T”. See how it feels different to pronounce the letter T with a relaxed tongue as opposed to when your tongue is pointed.
- Lift the middle part of your tongue so that it touches the roof of your mouth where the hard mound meets the soft skin and hold this position. Point your tongue again and then relax it while doing this. Feel the difference between the shape your tongue takes on the top of your mouth. If you were to breath out now, allowing the pressure of your breath to overcome your tongue position, it produces a “Keh” sound… this is the “K” position.
- Spend a few minutes, just swapping backward and forward between these two positions, making “TiKaTiKa” sounds. Eventually, try starting your tongue in a relaxed T position, and, while keeping the tip of your tongue in the relaxed T position, slowly bring the rest of your tongue up to the K position, keeping your tongue as relaxed (flat) as possible).
- You should now be able to feel where your tongue is sitting, and feel what it feels like when it is on the roof of your mouth in different positions. You should also be familiar with whether or not there is air between different parts of your tongue, and the roof of your mouth.
- Repeat these exercises until you feel very comfortable knowing exactly what your tongue is doing.
Step 2.
Get to know your airways:
Let’s now think about what’s happening to our airways at this time. We do a lot of things subconsciously, because we’ve created habits over the years, and breathing is a particularly autonomous movement, which has a lot of muscle memory attached to it. Sometimes the second we think about doing one thing, something happens somewhere else. Let’s start back with that K position.
- Keeping your mouth slightly open, let’s start in the K position. Make a few K sounds, slowly making them louder and louder. Take a big breath, build some pressure behind your tongue and then make the loudest K sound you can. Repeat, however right before you make the sound, keeping your tongue in exactly the same position, let the pressure you built up behind your tongue, instead run out through your nose in a big exhale.
- Before you move, think about what you’re doing; where your tongue is, and the fact you are breathing. We have to be aware of this position, as often people find themselves in this position by accident, with the back of the tongue against the roof of the mouth, while the rest of the airways stay open. Notice how you can still make the T position without letting go of the K… this is important, as when we start the T position for equalisation, we need to ensure that the back of our tongue is not also held up in the K position at the same time.
- Repeat this over and over. Build up pressure behind your tongue, and then once you have that pressure, let it out through your nose, keeping your tongue in the same position. What you are doing here is learning what it feels like to control your soft palate
- It is important as we progress, to know what it feels like to close it (pressure behind the K lock) and what it feels like when it’s open (when you let the pressure flow out through your nose). We will primarily be trying to keep it open
- The next muscle we will be learning about, is the glottis. This little muscle is what we close when we swallow, and temporarily (spasmodically) close when we cough. We can also stimulate closing it by making a “Hagh!” sound (like the word hat, but stopping abruptly short, just as you start to pronounce the T part of the word). This muscle can be closed easily, without sound, once we learn what the muscle is, however just as easily (and this is where most of our problems come into things) our muscle memory tries to keep the glottis open, and frustratingly, we need to over-ride this compulsion with a lot of time and effort.
- Take a shallow breath in, stick your tongue out, far over your bottom teeth, and close the glottis using any of the above techniques. Hold this position. While holding this position, let’s try some movements. Run your tongue around your lips; flick it up to try to touch your nose. Periodically check to see if your glottis is still closed by trying to breath in (with your tongue still out)… you shouldn’t be able to, and you may see a small depression in front of your throat, above the collarbone if you look in the mirror.
- This practice is the most important. Take another shallow breath in and repeat the above, but try to roll your tongue back to touch your soft palate, single out and touch each one of your teeth. Again, at each step, check to see if your glottis is still closed by trying to inhale.
- Next, we make sure we are isolating the glottis, and not closing the soft palate at the same time. Now that you’ve got a handle on what the glottis is, lets close your lips and push your tongue out through them (so that you don’t accidentally block with the back of your tongue) and I want you to try to take a very big, slow breath in. As you are doing this, repeat the glottis close movement, where you can temporarily feel your throat restrict your breath in, opening and closing it the whole breath in.
- If you are correctly only closing the glottis, and not also closing the soft palate at the same time. Look in the mirror. While doing this exercise, hold the glottis closed, and then lower your jaw, keeping your lips closed. If you saw your cheeks suck in (like there is a vacuum inside your mouth) then you’ve close your soft palate at the same time that you’ve closed your glottis.
- Keep repeating both this exercise, and the one above which opens and closes the soft palate until you can isolate closing the glottis entirely on its own, and keep it closed while we move our tongue. This might mean a week or so of practice.
The above movements are important to practice, while thinking specifically about the sensations, and what you are doing. The actual movements create very light, almost imperceptible sensations, when the muscles close or open, so you really need to dedicate some quite time to practice them all, over and over. Spend hours doing each one, until you know what each muscle feels like to move, hold closed, open, tighten, relax etc… until you are at one with the muscles in your mouth ;)
Now comes the equalisation part:
The aim – to have air in our mouth, separated from the flexibility of our lungs, which we can squeeze tight; creating pressure that then flows up and into our eustachian tubes.
- Let’s start by lowering your jaw slightly, so that there would be enough of a gap between your teeth to poke your tongue through if you wanted to. This allows us to start with a little more air into our mouth to begin with; the air we are going to now learn to squeeze.
- Place your tongue in the T position, feeling to make sure that the back of your tongue is lowered. Remember the K position, where you could still breath with your tongue at the roof of your mouth? Check you aren’t doing this.
- Slowly and gently inhale – and at a little over half your breath in, close your glottis gently to stop your breath.
- Pinch your nose without moving anything else; your tongue and glottis are still held gently in the position that you started this manoeuvre in.
- Keeping the tip of your tongue in the T – position, the last task, while still gently holding the glottis closed, is to raise the back of your tongue toward the K position. To help assist, you can bring your jaw back up a little, in synchrony with your tongue.
- Squeeze the air using your tongue with increasing strength and you should hear the “pop” – or equalisation sound. This is Frenzel!!
** Important **
Do not squeeze your stomach muscles as you do this exercise. IF you tighten your stomach muscles, you are opening your lungs up to the whole process. The lungs must stay completely detached from the movement, and in no way, shape or form contribute to the “blowing, squeezing or moving the air.”
Potential problems:
You felt nothing:
- If you felt nothing, no pressure in your ears, or pressure in your mouth. You’ve opened your glottis as you’ve lifted your tongue. The behaviours of breathing (creating pressure changes in our airways) will take time to consciously control. Go back and start the muscle familiarisation exercises again, and then re-try the frenzel manoeuvre, devoting as much thought as possible to keeping your glottis (and only glottis) held shut through the whole movement.