The Frenzel Technique: A Step-by-Step Guide to Equalising

The Frenzel technique is a way of equalising your ears that uses your tongue, not your lungs, to push air into the middle ear. You seal your nose, close your airway at the top of the windpipe, and lift the back of your tongue like a piston. That squeezes the small pocket of air in your mouth and nose and sends a little of it up the Eustachian tubes. Because it needs so little air and almost no effort, it keeps working head-down and deeper, where the Valsalva most of us picked up on aeroplanes starts to fail.

Most people go looking for it after their ears refused to clear at five or six metres on a first course. That is normal and fixable. Frenzel is a motor skill, closer to learning to whistle than to building fitness, and you can learn most of it on a yoga mat in your living room.

It is named after Hermann Frenzel, a German doctor who taught it to dive-bomber pilots around the Second World War. Freedivers adopted it for the same reason: it works when you are pointing straight down.

What happens to your ears as you descend

Behind each eardrum sits the middle ear, a small air-filled space. It connects to the back of your nose, the nasopharynx, through the Eustachian tube. The tube stays closed most of the time and opens briefly when you swallow or yawn.

Water pressure rises by about one atmosphere for every 10 metres of seawater. That pressure pushes the eardrum inwards against the air trapped behind it. Unless you add air to the middle ear, you feel pressure, then pain. Equalising simply means adding enough air to match the pressure outside.

The awkward part is that the biggest relative change happens near the surface. Between the surface and 10 metres the pressure doubles and any air space halves, so the first few metres demand the most frequent equalising. Our post on pressure, depth and Boyle’s law lays the numbers out in a table.

The anatomy behind the Frenzel technique

Three parts do the work. Learn to feel each one separately and the whole technique gets much easier to put together.

The glottis: sealing off the lungs

The glottis is the opening between your vocal cords at the top of the windpipe. Close it and your lungs are sealed off from your mouth. You do it every time you say “uh-oh”: the little catch in the middle is your glottis shutting. In Frenzel it stays closed, so your chest and belly play no part in the push.

The soft palate: the door to your nose

The soft palate is the soft, muscular back part of the roof of your mouth, with the uvula hanging from it. It works like a door between your mouth and your nasal cavity. For Frenzel the door stays open, so the air your tongue compresses can reach the back of the nose, where the Eustachian tubes open.

The tongue: the piston

The back of your tongue rises up and back towards the roof of your mouth, the same movement you make when you say “K” or “ga”. With the glottis shut and the nose pinched, that movement shrinks the air space and raises the pressure inside it. The only way out for that air is up the tubes.

How to do the Frenzel technique, step by step

Sit upright to start. Use a swimming nose clip if you have one, or pinch your nostrils with your thumb and finger.

1. Breathe in normally and let a little air sit in your mouth, enough that your cheeks feel soft, not puffed.
2. Pinch your nose closed.
3. Close your glottis, as if you had paused halfway through “uh-oh”.
4. Let your tongue rest naturally, with the tip behind your lower front teeth.
5. Lift the back of your tongue up and back against the roof of your mouth in one smooth movement, as if saying “K” with no sound and no air escaping.
6. Feel for a click, a pop or a sense of fullness in both ears. Relax the tongue and repeat.

Keep it gentle. A good Frenzel feels like a small nudge, not a shove. If your face goes red or your stomach tightens, your chest has joined in and you have slipped back into a Valsalva.

The “K” drill and other ways to find the movement

The “K” drill

With your nose pinched, whisper “K, K, K” without letting any air out. Then make the same movement silently. Most people feel pressure build behind the nose, and some feel an ear pop on the first go. If you don’t, carry on anyway: you are teaching the back of your tongue to move on its own.

The cheek-to-nose drill

Puff your cheeks with air, pinch your nose and close your glottis. Now use your tongue to push that cheek air back and up into your nose. Your cheeks should soften as the air moves, and you may feel your ears click. This proves that the air in your mouth is all you need, with no help from the lungs.

The hum check for the soft palate

If you push and feel pressure only in your mouth, your soft palate is probably closed. Hum “mmm” with your lips together for a second. Humming only works with the soft palate open, so it reminds you where the door is. Then go straight back into the drill.

We have put a full ten-minute routine, including head-down practice on your bed, in our guide to equalisation drills you can do at your desk.

How to tell if you are doing Frenzel or Valsalva

Plenty of people think they have switched when they haven’t. Try these checks:

• Hand on your belly. In Valsalva your abdominal muscles tighten as you equalise. In Frenzel your belly stays soft.
• Watch your shoulders and chest in a mirror. They should stay completely still.
• Cheek air only. If you can clear your ears using only air from puffed cheeks with the glottis closed, that is Frenzel.
• Breathe out first. Let a relaxed breath go, then equalise. A chest push feels weaker with less air in your lungs; a tongue piston feels the same.

If the checks show you are still pushing from the chest, our comparison of Valsalva vs Frenzel explains why the switch matters and gives a four-week plan for making it.

Common Frenzel mistakes and how to fix them

What you notice	Likely cause	What to try
Stomach tightens, face flushes	Glottis open, lungs doing the pushing	Close the glottis first, then move only the tongue
Cheeks balloon, nothing reaches the ears	Soft palate closed, air trapped in the mouth	Hum briefly to feel the palate open, then retry
Pressure in the nose but no pop	Push too short or too weak to open the tubes	Hold the tongue up for a beat, or use two or three small pulses
One ear clears, the other doesn’t	Small differences between your two tubes	Tilt your head slightly or push your jaw forward; see an ENT if it is always the same side
Nothing left to push with	Mouth has run out of air	Open the glottis for a moment to let a little air up, then close it
Ears ache after practice	Too many reps, too much force	Fewer, softer reps and a rest day

Taking the Frenzel technique into the water

Land practice gives you the movement. Water adds a mask, a breath-hold and being upside down, so expect some clumsiness.

• Equalise before you leave the surface. One gentle Frenzel just before your duck dive gives you a head start.
• Equalise early and often in the first 10 metres. Roughly every metre, or every kick or two, before you feel any pressure. Deeper down, pressure changes less per metre and you can space it out.
• Go slowly. Practise on a line, pulling yourself down hand over hand or descending feet-first, so you control the speed. Free immersion is the classic way to do this.
• Keep your head neutral. Craning your neck to look at the bottom tightens the throat.
• Refill your mouth when it runs low. Open the glottis briefly to let a little air up from your lungs, then close it again.

That refill step has a limit. As your lungs compress, there is eventually not enough air to pull up into your mouth, and for many divers this happens somewhere in the 20 to 40 metre range. Past that point you need a mouthfill, a separate skill built on a solid Frenzel.

Safety: Practise Frenzel on land as often as you like, but take it into the water only with a trained buddy watching you, on a line, in water you are comfortable in. Never force an equalisation. If an ear won’t clear, stop, come up a metre, try once more gently, and if it still won’t go, end the dive.

What to practise this week

• Days 1 and 2: the “K” drill and the cheek-to-nose drill, five minutes, twice a day. Morning chai and the evening news are both good slots.
• Days 3 and 4: the full Frenzel sitting up, with a hand on your belly to keep yourself honest.
• Days 5 to 7: the same thing lying on your back, then with your head hanging off the edge of the bed.

Short and frequent beats long and occasional, and if your ears start to feel sore, stop for the day. If you have done a week of this and one ear still won’t budge, work through our list of reasons you can’t equalise. Stay tuned for the freediving.in community, launching soon.