Training Tips

[kater]

Hey guys, looking for a bit of info on training tips. Any immediate, easy to implement tips that I don't know about, and feedback on their effectiveness?

[Clive]

Hey Kater,

Developing a good breath hold (or apnoea as it's known), or increasing your current limits takes just a few simple steps. The more active your body is, the more oxygen it needs. Therefore the more relaxed you can make yourself the longer your apnoea will last. Relaxation and deep breathing techniques will help bring your heart rate down.

The body is triggered to breath when it senses elevated levels of CO2 in the blood stream. Frequently practising apnoea will slightly desensitise your body's receptors and allow you to condition yourself to stand higher levels of CO2 in the bloodstream, without the overwhelming urge to exhale and take in new air.

When we, as mammals, are immersed in water, there is an instinctual reflex deep in our ancestral past that is triggered to help preserve our lives. The "mammalian diving reflex" is an instinct as babies we are born with, but "forget" as we grow up. This reflex in mammals triggers when they go underwater, especially cold water, it slows down the heart rate and others systems in the body to reduce the rate at which oxygen is used, prolonging the time the mammal can survive immersed. Practicing static (non moving) apnoea in a pool will help the body "remember" and utilise this instinctive reflex. ALWAYS REMEMBER, ANY TRAINING THAT INVOLVES WATER SHOULD NEVER BE CARRIED OUT ALONE. ALWAYS PRACTICE WITH A BUDDY, PREFERABLY ONE WHO HAS BEEN FIRST AID TRAINED.

Another way to train your body up, is to practice breath hold whilst doing some type activity. This helps condition the body to being active whilst having reduced levels of O2 and increased levels of CO2 in the blood stream. Such as, whilst walking the dog, hold your breath between set points. From one lamp post to the next or similar. Again, the greatest rate of increase would be gained whilst swimming submerged with a held breath (Dynamic Apnoea). Swimming of half a length underwater and gradually increasing to a length, length and a half or two lengths. ALWAYS REMEMBER, ANY TRAINING THAT INVOLVES WATER SHOULD NEVER BE CARRIED OUT ALONE. ALWAYS PRACTICE WITH A BUDDY, PREFERABLY ONE WHO HAS BEEN FIRST AID TRAINED.

I hope that helps, happy diving.

[kater]

thanks clive, a very informed answer.
Is there any breathing techniques that I can use at home (as in, sitting at home, different forms of breathing to increase lung capacity as in yoga)? And what are your thoughts on the Powerbreathe?

[Nathan]

ahoy there kate

I have a powerbreathe i really recommend them. When i used it in conjunction with my underwater hockey training my breathhold increased several fold

good info clive thats some informative stuff. i see you must have read Umberto Palazi's manual of Freediving..

[kater]

I have been wanting to read this book, but was a little put off by the length of it! I guess its the sort of thing that you just browse through bit by bit. I have spoken to Ben Noble a few times, the free-diving instructor who works through the shop, and he's pretty good for info. Any idea when the next free-diving course might be? Do you need a dive computer to do the course?

[Diver John]

Hi Kate!

Ben is actually gearing up for the next World Free Diving Championship. His training will see him aclimitising and practicing for the next two and a half months leading up to the competition. We are expecting him to return to Australia towards the end of June at this stage. Please call Adreno at the end of June to find out when the next course will be run.

As for the free diving computer it is not compulsorary to dive with one but it does help you if you do wear one! Computers can record time, depth and ascent rate for you. So just like in SCUBA diving they are an invaluable tool.

[kater]

anymore news on ben and how he's getting on?

[Diver John]

G'Day Kate!

Ben has been training hard and has not had a chance to update us as to how he is going with his quest for free diving glory. As we hear of his journey to supremacy we will be sure to keep you updated!

SAFE Diving,

John

[BennyB]

Hi guys,

Stumbled upon this thread quite late!

Clive has put some excellent information up on training techniques. Just to reiterate, never dive alone!!! I cannot stress this enough, and sadly people are still dying whilst undertaking breath hold activities and, without exception, every case in Australia I have heard of in the last 2 years have been where the victim was not being buddied properly.

Come along to a course and we will teach you proper buddying until it is second nature to you.

Clive is spot on - a relaxed freediver will stay underwater longer, so work on your ability to relax during a breath hold, don't stress and clench your neck muscles, shoulders etc.

As far as breathing techniques you can do at home, back in the early days I used to do a bit of static apnea on the lounge in front of the telly. This can be safely done by yourself, as long as your lying down and are not likely to fall off anything and crack your head (don't laugh, i've done it). You can hold your breath until you get a contraction (that urge to breath in your chest that feels a bit burn-like), then breath slowly and gently for a couple of minutes - make your exhale go for twice as long as your inhale - then try again but this time hold until you get a contraction and then hold it for a couple of contractions.

You can also a breath hold of about half of your best effort (say for example if your best was 4 minutes then do this exercise with 2 minute breath holds) and gradually reduce your recovery time. For example:
2min hold; 2 min rest
2min hold; 1:45 rest
2min hold; 1:30 rest
2min hold; 1:15 rest.....
and so on until you have about a 30 second rest period. Do about 7 or 8 of these - the first couple will be relatively easy, then wait... they get harder and harder. Why? Because with each breath hold you are creating Carbon Dioxide, which gives you the urge to breath. And although you are breathing in between breath holds, you are not getting rid of all this CO2 so it builds up slowly, which results in you getting the urge to breath quicker and quicker. This is called a CO2 table and is great for training a tolerance for CO2.

Yoga is definitely helpful too, although not a compulsory exercise. Pranayama in particular is good for freediving.

Regarding the Powerbreathe, so far i've heard nothing from freedivers to suggest it increases breath hold, actually i've heard the opposite. What I think they are good for is obtaining a better VO2 Max which would assist something that is a bit more cardio orientated like Underwater Hockey.

Umberto Pelizzari's Manual of Freediving is a fantastic resource, though it is quite hard to read as it gets technical and reads a bit like a textbook. I highly recommend it though.

Dive gauges are not essential but I highly recommend them - the big advantage for the average punter is the surface interval time. This tells you how long you've had on the surface after a dive which is crucial in order to ensure you spend enough time breathing up for the next dive. Decompression Sickness can affect freedivers who dive with not enough time between dives so knowing your surface interval is handy for that too. Plus it's cool to download your dive info and look at it as a graph.

So I hope that helps you get started!

Just to give you an update on my training, things are going well. I am competing in the Medeteranean World Cup in Kalamata, Greece in June (http://www.freediving-club.gr/index_files/Page327.htm).

I have been staying away from breath hold stuff for a while until I develop my aerobic and anaerobic fitness in order to lose some weight and free up some room around my lungs so hopefully they can expand a bit more which will hopefully allow me to dive deeper. So far things are going really well. I've been on a very low carb, high protein diet since January and spending every hour that I am not asleep or at work at the gym (and no alcohol - shock horror!). So far i've lost 17kg's and my body feels completely different to what I have dived with before. I have been going to Cairns a few weekends to train in the lake there. The first thing i've noticed is that my bouyancy has changed completely - I don't float like I used to so I have had to shed the lead. My first dive in my lighter body was almost a disaster with my 2.5kg neckweight, I made it to 44m in some stupidly quick time that I could barely equalise quickly enough to keep up. After that I went down to 1.5kg's which seems to work at the moment. The lake I train in is lovely on the surface but once you get past 30m it gets damn dark and cold, and on some of my deeper 50+m dives I could barely see my hand in front of my face, let alone the base plate at the bottom of the rope. Tomorrow I head to Cairns again, this time I am taking possession of a new monofin from the Ukraine, I can't wait to test it out. It's a little stiffer than my last one which will assist me on the ascent where I am still negatively bouyant and need a bit of thrust to get momentum up.

With about 6 weeks to go i've started to do some breath hold work in the gym, I won't go into the details but it's all about learning to cope with lactic limbs and I can quite honestly say it's nasty stuff, there are plenty of more fun things to do on a weeknight!

The competition is on mid June and we arrive back in Australia towards the end of June. I'm giving myself a couple of weeks R&R and then we'll start to look at getting some courses on for the second half of the year. The depth component is now located on the wreck of the HMAS Brisbane, this is such a cool wreck and so far it has only been freedived on by myself and a mate, it's a really great dive.

Best of luck in your freediving endeavours and remember - never dive alone, always dive with a competent buddy!

Cheers,
Ben