Our Technology

What is Kadence Technology®?

Kadence Technology, Inc. is pleased to introduce you to the world’s first pressure-regulated snorkel. Envisioned and developed by a doctor of internal medicine, Mark R. Johnson, MD, Kadence Technology is the revolutionary science behind the Kapitol Reef® snorkel. It purposefully introduces a calibrated resistance into the exhalation path of the snorkel to improve your breathing. This introduces a small, therapeutic pressure to improve oxygen delivery into, and carbon dioxide removal from, the bloodstream. It also counters the compressive weight of water acting on the chest wall to restore a more normal breathing pattern. Inhalation muscles are spared from fatigue and lung volumes are supported to be more natural.

Kadence Technology® improves breathing performance.

The pressure regulation of this innovative technology significantly improves performance and safety. Indeed, relaxed respiratory rates drop 32% with Kadence Technology and comfortable breath-hold times increase 22%. While it is not recommended to hyperventilate with any snorkel (including the Kapitol Reef snorkel) to accomplish longer dive times, typical users note that they are more comfortable breath-holding with Kadence Technology.

Kadence Technology reduces what has become known as “snorkel panic,” which physiologically occurs when lungs become compressed. By helping to preserve lung volumes, the uncomfortable feedback from stretch receptors in the terminal bronchioles of the lungs to subconscious areas of the brain, is suppressed, resulting in much less anxiety.

Kadence Technology also ingeniously separates inhaled air from exhaled carbon dioxide, thereby minimizing the re-breathing of oxygen-depleted air. This helps all users, but is especially beneficial for individuals with small lungs. Not only can children now swim with the safety of an adult-sized snorkel, but they can do so with better comfort and safety.

Due to its unique design, the Kapitol Reef snorkel empowers you to breathe more naturally without forceful purging, even after diving or swimming in rough waters. In its normal upright swim position, the very process of gently exhaling through the Kapitol Reef snorkel effectively removes any water that may have entered during the previous inhalation, even if you are submerged! The inhalation passages are naturally protected from splash and floodwater while exhaling. While submerged, water is not able to get into the inhalation passages, regardless of orientation – unless the snorkeler intentionally draws water in. Even then, the water enters slowly and is automatically purged while gently exhaling, which is natural while ascending to the surface.

Why is it vital to regulate breathing?

The weight of the water around your body presses air out of your lungs and forces the muscles around your chest to work harder to inhale. The result: fatigued inhalation muscles, smaller lung volumes, erratic breathing patterns, and increased anxiety.

Swimming with an ordinary snorkel does nothing to address these problems. In fact, conventional dry snorkels rely upon negative pressure to keep the float valve closed and keep the water out! This suction can actually draw the tongue into the mouthpiece when diving to moderate depths and actually worsens the relative pressure discomfort across the sinuses and the ears.

In contrast, Kadence Technology solves these problems by utilizing precision-engineered valves to develop a slight positive pressure, which more naturally keeps water out while also supporting inhalation muscles, preserving lung volumes, and restoring a normal cadence to breathing and improving the efficiency of alveolar (air sac) function in the lungs. No other snorkel produces such comfortable breathing.

Kadence Technology utilizes precision-engineered valves to match exhalation airway pressures to the water pressure around your body. This helps to counteract the water pressures against your lungs, mouth, ears, and sinuses.

Diving

During a typical head-down descent, the Kadence Regulator is positioned at a greater depth than the user's lungs and head. This provides increased pressure to keep air in the lungs and to counter the discomfort of water pressure against the sinuses and the ears. It also allows the Inhalation Valve to remain tightly closed, keeping the inhalation passage dry. 

Surfacing

Upon returning to the surface, the Kadence Regulator is positioned close to the depth of the lungs, allowing the user to release air slowly and comfortably from the lungs. This effortlessly purges the Exhalation Channel and assures that no water remains in the Inhalation Channel, thereby giving the diver supreme confidence that he can take a rapid deep, breath upon surfacing.