Patrick Musimu (12 October 1970 – 21 July 2011) was a

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

freediver Freediving, free-diving, free diving, breath-hold diving, or skin diving is a form of underwater diving that relies on breath-holding until resurfacing rather than the use of breathing apparatus such as scuba gear. Besides the limits of breath- ...

, sport business manager, marketing and event manager, and

physiotherapist Physical therapy (PT), also known as physiotherapy, is one of the allied health professions. It is provided by physical therapists who promote, maintain, or restore health through physical examination, diagnosis, management, prognosis, patien ...

. He was born in Kinshasa,

Zaire Zaire (, ), officially the Republic of Zaire (french: République du Zaïre, link=no, ), was a Congolese state from 1971 to 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Zaire was, ...

. On 30 June 2005, he beat the previous "No Limits" world record in freediving by almost 40 meters by diving to 209 meters. Following his request, this dive was done without the supervision of the International Association for Freediving agency, from which Musimu dissociated since 2002. According to him, extreme deep freediving should not be considered as a sport but as an adventure. Musimu began diving in 1999 at the age of 28, intrigued by what he called "dolphin-men". His secret lay in years and years of training and preparation, but special attention should be given to his

ear clearing Ear clearing or clearing the ears or equalization is any of various maneuvers to equalize the pressure in the middle ear with the outside pressure, by letting air enter along the Eustachian tubes, as this does not always happen automatically w ...

technique: instead of equalizing his ears by the regular maneuvers, he flooded his air spaces (sinus and middle ears) with seawater before reaching the depth where ordinary equalization would become hard. He had a

lung capacity Lung volumes and lung capacities refer to the volume of air in the lungs at different phases of the respiratory cycle. The average total lung capacity of an adult human male is about 6 litres of air. Tidal breathing is normal, resting breathin ...

of 9 litres and could hold his breath for more than 8 min 33 sec. In Stan Lee's Superhumans, a show on the

History Channel History (formerly The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney ...

, Musimu claimed meditation and yoga to be the reason behind his apparent powers of holding breath. On 21 July 2011, Musimu died while pool training alone in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, Belgium, and was found by his wife and daughter.

References

External links

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Current Freediving World Records
Belgian freedivers Democratic Republic of the Congo emigrants to Belgium 1970 births 2011 deaths Sportspeople from Kinshasa {{Belgium-sport-bio-stub