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Strange notice at pool


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Don't think this is the best place for this post, but here goes:

Went to new local pool yesterday (aside: it is gorgeous, clean and cheap with loads of showers, hairdryers etc!)

On the wall near the deep end was an official sign saying "Apnée interdit" - still haven't figured out what this means! No holding your breath? (Why would you....?)

Chrissie (81)

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I am a diver and we would regularly train en apnée, its very very dangerous and should only be done in buddy pairs, I should be able to relate the physics to you but am rusty, basically as you come to the surface after a long and strenous apnée, for me 2+ lengths there is a high risk of a syncope in the last 50cm before the surface, its like a faint, the brain stops but the vital systems like breathing continue, not what you want when sinking to the bottom.

the Buddy has to be right with you when you surface and be ready to get you to the surface, out of the pool and to render first aid, I have had to do it once, it was OK because I Grabbed my Buddy Partner before they had sunk Under the water, they came back to consciousness very quickly.

 

That said whenever I go to the pool I swim en apnée as I cannot breathe when doing the crawl and find it easier to do the breast stroke just breathing once or twice a length.

 

My apologies for all the misplaced capital letters, this f***ing bug in Windows puts replaces what i type with a capital letter for Windows, Buddy, Partner,  Grabbed Under, and lord only knows what else, drives me up the fucking wall [:(]

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Blimey Chancer, I never knew that!! I quite often swim 3 lengths of our 10m pool underwater all on my own! I will think twice about doing that again.

In my jeunesse I used to duck dive (I think it's got the posh name of free diving nowadaze?) for coral when I was stationed in Singapore and go down to 30 feet or more with no problems. I used to borrow a diving mate's depth gauge to see just how deep and I was pretty well near my limit doing that. I guess it wasn't so widely known about in the 60s? Collecting coral wasn't frowned upon then.. Even now I spend more time under water than on it!

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Do some Googling, dont know the terms in English but its syncope nage apnée in French.

 

We also do,(or did as I no longer have the time to keep up the sport) free diving in the fosse at Amiens, its 15m (45 feet) deep and we are very Lucky to have it, there are none in the UK except the Navy ones, anyway whilst we always have an instructor/lifeguard watching I dont think the danger is the same one, I'm pretty sure the syncope occurs when you are breath-holding at shallow depths where the pressure change is greatest, its all about partial pressures and CO2 concentration, sorry that I cant recall the science.

3 lengths of a 10m pool is less effort than 2 lengths of a 25 m pool as you get 3 kick offs.

 

As an aside I just looked at the website for our local pool, just look at the comments about the accueil and the staff, this is absolutely par for the course for all businesses around here especially those dealing with tourists who really should know better.

 

 http://www.guide-piscine.fr/somme/piscine-caneton-a-albert-851_P

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By the way, free diving to 15m and spending quite a bit of bottom time is very easy once you have trained a bit and overcome what your brain and chest is telling you, once you get to a certain depth water pressure compresses the body to negative bouyancy and you fall like a stone with no effort, a good impulsion from the bottom and some vigourous kicks and strokes will bring you to the same point whereby you can rise to the surface with no effort all you have to do is concentrate on remaining calm, easire said than done of course.

 

I actually am one of the few people to have experienced it as an obese person, very hard to descend but easy to come back up, and an athletic lean build which is the opposite, it took a lot of retraining, recalibrating of my instincts, one of the exercises we do is to go down a marker line and clip on a clothes peg at the depth we start to fall (negative bouyancy) there is a huge difference between the different body types, women have some built in airbags [6] my peg used to be a long way down, now its right near the top, treading water now takes frenetic effort yet all my life before I could float by just the occasional flutter of the hands.

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Well, blow me down with an inflatable water wing! It is clear that some of you live in a totally different universe to me and my steady but pathetically slow breaststroke lengths. How fascinating. And to think that it is common enough to have its own "forbidden" notice.

I was interested in the pool site. It would seem that most of France has ridiculously short opening times for the pools, and not just us. When I asked the receptionist if it would be possible to swim before 10am (summer only), she looked at me as if I was barking. I clarified that I wondered if perhaps groups could book for earlier times.....? Non, Madame, the pool was not open at all in the "early" morning. What a waste of revenue!
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[quote user="Chancer"]this f***ing bug in Windows puts replaces what i type with a capital letter for Windows, Buddy, Partner,  Grabbed Under[/quote]Never heard of any such bug, it will be something in your browser and something you have done.

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Chrisse,

Absolutely, same as me, I pant when only doing three breaststrokes across the pool, that's all the space there is .... but it is very relaxing.  Apnée, no thank you, being breathless and hurting with it is quite enough for me... but my father was a pilot life saver (and had a Royal Life Saving Society medal for it we found) so he was probably quite aware of this.  Sadly, towards the end of his life, he dare not swim alone in case he was disabled by cramp (he was almost 93 when he died earlier this year!), and he had the most perfect splash-less crawl I have ever seen ... beautiful.  I remember he sat and watched me swim the last time he was here, and helped be improve my stroke, which sadly, I cannot now follow, as the degenerating hip means I have now to swim with an adapted stroke.  Tant pis!

PS I am not a very good swimmer, as until 3 years ago I was very short sighted, and until I had my cataracts removed (some here will remember my joy!), I could not even see the other side of the pool, even 3 strokes away.  Now age is creeping up, but I still enjoy being able to get into the water.... albeit very badly!

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I was actually very jealous of you ladies with your (not so) slow and pathetic breast stroke, before I realised that apnée was the way to go for me I would make a tremendous thrashing crawl stroke using loads of effort, lock solid and start sinking each time I tried to breathe, after only one length I would be breathless and exhausted, and all that time the women would effortlessly glide past me not even making a ripple in the water, with perfectly dry coiffed hair, chatting to each other using seemingly zero effort.

 

I want to learn to swim properly because I want to do a triathlon, if I end up swimming like a woman then that jis ust fine by me, I will be as fresh as a daisy for the 60K bike ride and 22K run or whatever it is they do after the swim, as things are I would need to be medivacced after the swim.

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