It is always a good thing to train with other freedivers once and a while, which made me decide to visit the pool in Zeist again for a freediving training. I joined up with Eric van Riet Paap at 19:45 yesterday and we started out with a static session to be followed by a dynamic session later in the evening.
Static
Eric had been making schedules for CO2 to go along his static times, as for today he wanted to do his “7,5 minute”-CO2 table. I agreed to try and do this schedule as well, just for the challenge of it, because it has been a while since a did a real good CO2 schedule. We started with a warm-up of empty lungs statics and I was very pleased with my results on that since this had been a while as well. Eric did nice empty lungs statics around 2m 10s and I was able to pull off a 1m 54s empty lung static.
In the meantime the other freedivers joined us, Rik Rösken, Danny Matherus, Erik Skoda and Rem. On to the schedule » First to go was Eric and he managed to do this grueling schedule without any bail outs or real problems. So respect for that! After that I was given the opportunity to give it a try. The first part went good and the first increase in time didn’t pose a problem. Then came the second increase in time and I just had too much trouble getting there in combination with an upcoming headache, that I decided that this schedule is for another time to finish. Just like Eric said, these things you have to build up to a level like this. None the less this was an awesome training and felt so good to be doing a proper CO2 training again.
After the schedule we both did a maximum static to see how the CO2 table influenced the contractions. Eric and I both did a respectable time without real problems, for 4m 31s for Eric and 4m 44s for myself.
Dynamic
For myself I had the goals I set in my last post, to reach 87,5 meters and see how easy that feels and always do a turn at 75m even if it’s just the turn. Eric had a similair kind of set up for his training, so we decided to take turns at our set distances. Eric first did a nice 100 meter with a turn and was very pleased with the overall feel, improvement points for himself were the turnpoints. After that I did a 87,5 meter dynamic and it actually felt like something to train with the coming period. We both went at it again and succeeded in doing that extra turn at the end. Pleased with the results I called it a day and went home and just made it there before midnight.
I like to thank Eric and his fellow freedivers for having me over, it was a great learning experience and good overall results to feel good about.
That was some proper training at the Tongelreep, Eindhoven last night. Both Jorg and I had been planning to continue the good training from the week before, so we were determined to get the alignment on the next level by getting some distance in.
Repetitive
Distance not in the maximum performance, but in just set distances and more repetitions. Jorg set his schedule to 37,5 meters and repeated this 4 times. I set my distance at 75 meters and repeated this 2 times. I think I should up the repetitions before upping the distance, but I am still to find the right distance to improve from. I’m thinking to up the set distance to 87,5 meters for several reasons:
I always have to make the turn
I surface at the side edge of the pool
Winning the mental game towards a wall
Technique
I have noticed that technique also improves my freediving time as follows: When I do the constant cycle of kicking, it will take about 17 seconds for 25 meters and when I do the kick-kick-kick-glide, it will take about 20-21 seconds for 25 meters. Later in the training I did the kick-kick-kick-glide again and now the technique was better because of a constant motion in the complete cycle, now the time was around 18-19 seconds for 25 meters. Same effort more speed… I have to focus on getting into the proper technique straight away for the motion cycle.
I’ve included the video from last training for Lubomir Stefanoff to see the progress on the alignment better.
Goals
Alright the goals for next training are set then . I’ll be doing 2 or 3 times a 87,5 meters dynamic with monofin and see if this can be a thing I get consistent in. Rest of the training will focus on technique runs and times 25 and 50 meter runs.
So it seems from the training last night that my horizontal alignment is getting somewhere. The past few weeks we have been training a lot with the monofin, just to get the proper movement. The hardest part was figuring out what amplitude to go by and how that feels opposed to what you have been doing for a while now.
But last night during training I was just doing my thing based on the outcome of previous weeks of monofin training and was glad to hear Jorg tell me he was amazed what he was observing. One of the best things to bring at a training is the video equipment, which made the video from the horizontal alignment instantly available to me. Now I’m able to connect the feeling I had during the 75m performance to the way it looks, which in my case is very valuable.
After the successful monofin laps, it was time to focus on the turn points as I still don’t feel all to comfortable about the energy I put into the turn right now. What seems to be happening is that while touching the wall at a certain point the push off from my feet is considerably higher on the wall than the initial touch down. This is due to the somewhat larger monofin that I have to swing around, but it was a thing we could get rid of when using bi-fins as well. So we put some effort in the turns and after about 8 times there were 2 turns that showed potential.
So currently I’m going to stick with the following turn technique when using a monofin:
When I see the T stripe I’ll glide towards the wall
I roll over on my right side
touch the wall with my right hand and compress legs inwards
While compressing I use my grip of the right hand still on the wall to prepare for swinging the monofin around
Swing the monofin around at about the same location as my hand placement
Decompress by starting to stretch out the arms
Fully decompress by the push off with both feet equally
This felt like the best motion for me to stick with. Any tips or suggestions are welcome.
The other night I was coaching Jorg while holding his breath at the hottub pool in the Tongelreep Eindhoven. He was experiencing his normal barrier and trying all kinds of different preparation techniques to break out of it as you can read here. As we know from our previous competition and other training sessions in the hottub, it can be very hot in there . This high temperature poses a range of problems which seemed easy to explain why they happen, but it turns out I was wrong about 1 of them.
When I was coaching Jorg, the time I spent in the pool doing nothing but coaching increased to a range of 25 minutes orso. That’s when I started sensing the same thing as when I’d have vasoconstriction. But although I assumed it was a free pass into having the vasoconstriction, I learned that it is actually vasodilation and thus the exact opposite of the thing you want happening with freediving.
To prove the theory I decided on doing a schedule to counteract the vasodilation and see after how many times the tingling sensation would fade away. So I did 1 minute 30 seconds breath holds and in the last 5 seconds I’d release all my air, after that I’d surface and immediately take one deep breath again and do another 1m30s. Normally with this schedule you would get the vasoconstriction kicking in at around 6 or 7 times.
The test showed us, that after only 3 times into this schedule the vasodilation was counteracted and I didn’t have the tingling feeling anymore. Theory proven and a lesson learned .
Last night I drove out to Nieuw-Vennep for a static competition organized by Nanja van den Broek’s organization Enker. The traffic didn’t pose a problem as I anticipated, so I was even in time for the inscription and judge speech. Although one judge was sick and one other freediver had called in sick, the cafetaria was filled with competing freedivers. Jorg was supposed to be joining as well, by after having another session with the dentist the pain was just too much to bare and he decided to stay home. It’s great to meet people in real life, after you spoke with them over the internet, although sometimes it takes a few minutes to recognize someone (Sorry Frank )
After everybody was inscribed and preparations were made to the pool, the competition started with the safety freedivers doing their own static’s first. After that Judith van de Griendt and Mark Keijzers were the organization’s safety. Besides all the gadgetery display, the competition was fun to be competing at. Exchanging experiences and learning from other freedivers is what comes first at these events, even if you don’t compete or compete against the big guns it will always be good thing to join for the learning experience. During the event I also grabbed my Android phone and tried make something out of the live coverage for Shark-freediving.com. You can watch the material in my Ustream channel here.
I promised myself the minimum of 3m30s would be satisfactory as I agreed upon with Jorg. Got into my Elios suit, which felt strange as I was almost the only one wearing one of those these days. I watched Eric and Jouke’s performance before I entered the water and eased into the competition area. Had a few laughs with the safety and started my breath up at 2 minutes before official top. Slow breathing with a normal rythem of 5 seconds in and about 20-25seconds air out always feels comforting. One or two seconds after official top I submerged and immediately the thoughts came into my head: “Here we are again, so why am I doing this?” Time to get rid of those thoughts and replace them by the experiences I had during my work day. Worked pretty well. At about 2 minuntes the contractions started and Not much later Mark Keijzers tapped my 1st tap @ 2m30s. Tap 2 and 3 came pretty quickly and I had reached the satisfactory level for myself. It all felt ok and I did two extra taps as I had promised myself and Eric to take a few extra contractions. Came up clean and did my surface protocol, waited for Erik Skoda to present my white card and there it was another mission accomplished.
It all might sound strange for people who used to know me as a guy who could static’s over 5-6 minutes and now not even being able to do so. But this has everything to do with me getting back on my feet after a succesful step back. I take things slowly and keep the fun factor high, hopefully this way I can get myself to fight off some more contractions. As long as I’m willing to do this for my own benefit and not for expectations of others, which is mostly the thing when my head starts thinking on automatic-mode .
Nanja thanks for organizing a nice event and let me express myself in your own words: “I always love competitions like these!”
This is a post by Sanne.
It is always a good thing to train with other freedivers once and a while, which made me decide to visit the pool in Zeist again for a freediving training. I joined up with Eric van Riet Paap at 19:45 yesterday and we started out with a static session to be followed by a dynamic session later in the evening.
. I’ll be doing 2 or 3 times a 87,5 meters dynamic with monofin and see if this can be a thing I get consistent in. Rest of the training will focus on technique runs and times 25 and 50 meter runs.
. This high temperature poses a range of problems which seemed easy to explain why they happen, but it turns out I was wrong about 1 of them.
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