On Sunday the 4th September, at the Auckland Freediving Club Deep Obsession competition Phil Clayton beat his standing UK DNF National Record of 138m with a dive of 144m. What makes this achievement remarkable is that the dive was done on exhale (slightly beyond a passive exhale). Phil has been training exhale DNF around one day per week as part of his training regime as it was much easier to train while travelling for business without 4+kg of weights!
As time went by Phil (and his dive buddies) were repeatedly surprised by longer and longer exhale dives with no apparent hypoxia. Following the Wellington Winter Champs in June it became apparent that an attempt on the National Record was possible on exhale.
The first attempt on Sat 3rd was unsuccessful with the dive terminated at 110m, thought to be due to excess CO2. Changing the breathe-up on the Sunday lead to a successful result!
Phil is now keen to get back in the sea and the local lake to start constant weight training after all this ‘exhale craziness’ and is rumoured to be thinking that Nice would be Nice….