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national free-diving
rec­ord. Though they
joked about harvesting
ice for vodka, they were
readying the lake for a
free-diving contest in
the dead of winter, in a
place where the water temperature hovers
just above freezing.
There would be no world records set this
day — no Guinness reps had been invited
— and there were no championships on
the line either. It was pure competition, a
simple trial to see who olla munaa
(had the balls) to go into water this
D i s p a t c h cold and stay there the longest, and
nothing more.
As they worked, I asked Joki why they
didn’t just cut the blocks and push them
down into the lake’s 300-foot-plus depths.
Looked easier than hauling them out.
“Because sometimes the ice f loats back
into place after you get in, like a manhole
cover,” he told me, with typical Nordic reserve. “Then you’re stuck.”
The holes cut, the divers threw on wetsuits and began doing practice dives. Snow
fell. Periodically, a magenta-faced figure in
a wetsuit would emerge from the icy waters,
saying something about the “cathedral-like
light” and “eerie beauty” below.
Finally, around 4 pm, Severinsen got
out of the water and removed his wetsuit,
changing into the briefest of bright-blue
Speedos. He grabbed a stuffed animal —
a cat — that he carries around with him
like a totem or a good-luck charm, and announced, “OK, Bøf, time to swim!” He sank
into a lotus position on the lake ice. Severinsen is the author of the book Breatheology,
a sort of breathing treatise and memoir, in
Stig Severinsen is a champion free-diver with
which he describes his particular routine
superhuman lungs. Swimming in a frozen lake in
before a competitive dive or breath-hold:
Four minutes prior to submersion, he sits by
nothing but a Speedo? That, he does for fun.
the water with his back straight and his eyes
by C h a r l e s B e t h e a
closed, breathing quietly, with “an inner
smile and feeling light.” At three minutes,
he deepens his breath, inhaling and exhaling through his nose. At two minutes, he
Néry, a Gauloises-smoking French diver and
n e a f ter noon in March, a
switches to heavier breathing and starts
the 2011 world champion in the “constant
dozen barrel-chested young
exhaling through his mouth, which he
weight, no fins” deep-­diving discipline; and
men stood on the frozen wapurses in an oval shape, a form of what he
Antero Joki, a bearded Finn who holds a
ters of Lake Päijänne, two
hours north of Helsinki, Finland, cutting
holes into two-foot-thick ice. Using large
saws, hooks, and ropes, they managed, in
Improve Health
Maximize Potential
Relax
an hour, to remove a half-dozen 5-by-6Research
The average
Severinsen calls
foot blocks from the lake, each weighing
suggests that
person uses just
breathing an
about 200 pounds. Among the men were
developing
50 to 60 percent
“accurate and
proper breathing
of his lung capachonest barometer”
some of the world’s best free-divers: Stig
It’s not just for diving
habits can play
ity. Breath training
of a person’s
Severinsen, a tan, hairless 39-year-old Dane
under ice. Three ways
a role in treating
expands the lungs,
emotional state.
with a Mr. Clean head and a Greg Louganis
that breathing lowers
conditions like
and better oxygen
Train your breathbody whose 14-liter lung capacity — more
stress, improves
asthma, acute
intake means
ing to maintain
than twice the average man’s — has en­athleticism, and can
bronchitis, ADHD,
higher athletic
your calm and
heal what ails you.
and sleep apnea.
performance.
lower stress levels.
abled him to hold his breath underwater
for a world-record 22 minutes; Guillaume
Severinsen’s
yoga-inspired
breathing
techniques allow
him to hold his
breath for 22
minutes.
The Ice Guru
O
The benefits
of Deep
Breathing
XX
month tk 2012
Morten BjØrn L arsen
Men’s JournaL
notebook
warfare. Troels Hviid,
a ­37-year-old Microsoft
project manager from
Denmark, attended a
weeklong seminar held
on a boat in the Red Sea
off Egypt. He uses the
techniques he learned
there doing deep dives to stay calm in pressured work situations. “You take a big breath
and go down,” he explained, “but the panic
quickly grabs you, and I had to work on the
mental side to stay calm. You have to generate
a lot of positive thoughts to preserve oxygen.”
For this, and other instruction, Severinsen
charges as much as $10,000 per week, per
person, with recent sessions taking place in
Las Vegas and San Diego.
Severinsen made his attempt on Hof ’s
record in March 2010, in Denmark’s Lake
Knudsoe, 20 minutes from his home in
Aarhus. His training for the feat included
swims in the North Sea, which, because of
the salt content, drops below freezing. Hundreds of Danes turned out, despite the cold,
to witness Severinsen, in his now-signature
Speedo, clip into a safety line, work through
his breathing routine, and then slide into
a square black hole in the frozen lake and
swim beneath the ice until he’d reached
another hole 236 feet away. The air was 2
degrees Fahrenheit. The water: 38. Severinsen spent 96 seconds in the water, and
unlike Hof, he came out with no assistance.
Afterward, Severinsen, instead of warming up, took a victory lap on the ice, waving
his towel behind him and playing to the
crowd. Later, he would admit that the swim
had been more difficult than he’d let on. “I’m
not a crybaby, but it was very unpleasant
and very noticeable,” he said. “I’d never felt
this kind of core cold.” When asked how he
beat Hof’s record so easily, he said, “I’m not
different from any other person. I just have
the ability to shut down the sensory register
for pain and discomfort.”
From left:
Severinsen on
a training run;
resurfacing after
a dive in Oslo,
with wetsuited
safety divers
looking on.
Men’s JournaL
XX
month tk 2012
sev er insen swa m from one ice hole to
another that day at Lake Päijänne, surfaced,
and then went back. When he was done, he
lingered on the ice, still only in his bathing
suit, while the other competitors rushed
into an aging sauna next to the lake. Later,
Néry, to save face, braved the water like Severinsen, in only a swimsuit. This champion
athlete — perhaps the world’s best free-diver,
someone utterly unafraid of blacking out
underwater — was able to endure the cold
water for all of 10 seconds. Severinsen stayed
out there with Néry the whole time, laughing genially at his discomfort. Severinsen
would receive no prizes, set no records, and
do no victory laps. But it was clear that in
this contest, and perhaps in any contest of
this sort, Severinsen had triumphed. n
FROM LEFT: CASPER T YBJERG; FREDRIK NAUMANN/FELIX FEATURES
swim “fun” enough that he decided to do
calls “purge breathing.” The mouth acts
it again, a year later, when he challenged
as a valve, creating higher pressure in the
a decade-old ice-swimming record set by
lungs, which opens the alveoli and allows
Wim Hof of the Netherlands, who, in March
the blood to absorb more oxygen. After
2000, near the Finnish village of Kolari,
30 seconds, he takes a long and luxurious
swam 190 feet under the ice of a frozen lake.
yawn. Then, pressing his f ingers lightly
Severinsen had seen that feat on YouTube
against his thighs, (which, he says, causes
and wasn’t impressed.
the lung pressure to drop as his diaphragm
“He almost passed out,” Severinsen said.
shifts, again allowing the intake of more
“They had to drag him out of the water.”
air), he starts to “pack,” sucking in still more
Severinsen, who has a
oxygen with his tongue,
Ph.D. in medicine and a
almost like a lion lapping
“I’m not different
master’s in biology, doesn’t
water. He does this perearn his living from ice divhaps a dozen times, dons
from anyone,”
ing. But his cold-water exhis diving mask, and then,
says Severinsen.
ploits do bring attention to
still smiling, slips into the
“I just have the
his other work: teaching
hole in the ice.
ability to shut
highly paid, highly competitive corporate executives
stig severinsen grew
down the sensory
(and athletes, including
up “Viking swimming” —
register for pain.”
champion cyclist Alberto
basically, splashing around
Contador) who are lookin ice holes — in the frigid
ing for an edge, about the art and science
lakes near his hometown of Ålborg, in
of breathing. These lessons, at what he calls
northern Denmark. His first proper ice dive
his Breatheology Academy, are not held in
took place in Norway on his 37th birthday,
the frigid climes in which Severinsen often
in 2009, at the world’s first under-ice free­competes, but typically in a more relaxed,
diving competition (won by Néry). Unlike
tropical location. There’s good food, motiat Päijänne, the divers wore thick wetsuits,
vating and counterlogical conversation of
and there were international judges. “It was
the TED Talk variety, as well as swimming,
official,” he says. “But at the end, I wanted
meditation, and lectures on the benefits of
something else, some extra fun.”
better air intake. Severinsen contends that
So he jumped into the frozen lake wearoptimal breathing, with its focus on physical,
ing nothing but a swimsuit — did the backmental, and emotional self-awareness, can be
stroke, dove down 70 feet, and generally
an effective weapon in the world of corporate
alarmed onlookers. Severinsen found this