Static not related to diving ability?

[donmoore]

This theory has been spread around db for a while, and with no criticism of the members who have been saying it, after all a lot of my theories have been proven wrong, maybe even this one, I would like to challenge it.

Kirk and Martin, at the performance clinic, said they believe static is the foundation for diving. This is my own belief too and in my mind it’s very easy to proof. Just try to name one good deep or dynamic diver who doesn’t have a good static! Now it is true that there are some people that if they only train for static and do no muscle working CO2 training, they will only be good at static, but I believe that with some training they will excel in dive ability past everyone with mediocre statics.

The best two constant ballast divers in the world during 2003 were/are Herbert Nitsch and Martin Stephanek. Nobody was in 10 meters of them! Martin, up until 2 days ago, if Stephane Mifsud records is verified (awesome static Stephane), had the world record static at 8:06. Hebert did 8:27 in practice at Cyprus in March. So the two best deep divers in the World are also two of the best at statics.
don

[Walrus]

Hi Don,
look at the number of divers who dive in the 80m range who only do statics in the 6 minute range, Carlos, Guilliame, Bret LeMaster, and many more. The 2 divers you mentioned are in the minority that have statics and depths that are in a 'similar' range.

Last year I trained in dynamics and statics. I had a 144m dynamic PB yet struggled to get over 6 minutes in statics. I stopped training statics, and worked on mostly on dynamics and improved. Just recently have been training depth and increased my PB by 11m to 72m, this had nothing to do with statics ?

I do think that doing CO2 tables can help. But could also be done by doing CO2 training with dynamics. I don't think you need to be good at statics to be good at depth diving. If someone only ever trained in depth diving and never did statics, I think they would get really good at it, even if they would suck at statics !

Statics are usefull to teach to beginners. Can learn about breathing, relaxing and warmup routines. But the old saying about "if you can do a 6 minute static, you can do a 60m dive" is a load of BS as far as I am concerned. Some people are just naturally better at one then the other.



Cheers,
Wal

[donmoore]

The 2 divers you mentioned are in the minority that have statics and depths that are in a 'similar' range.

Wals,
Very true, but I don’t think it any consequence that the two divers that are doing 10 meters more in depth are also doing a minute more in static. I think your also right that everyone is usually going to be better at one than another and there are times when it will benefit a person to give up statics for awhile so they can concentrate on the other things. I know Martin doesn’t serious train for statics all the time. He said he hates them.

This is all just my opinion as I am only a beginner in freediving disciplines, but I think the 800-meter race would make a good analogy. For athletes to be great at 800 meters they need speed and endurance. Sometimes they work on their speed and sometimes their endurance. Statics are like endurance. Speed is diving or CO2 work.

The saying “if you can do a 6 minute static, you can do a 60m dive” would be better said “if you can do a 6 minute static you have the potential to do 60m dive, providing you develop the other things necessary. One also seems to help the other. Many report that after working on longer dives, or CO2 training their statics go up.

Thanks for your thoughts. Herbert, your opinion would be extremely valuable as well.
don

[ivan]

hi

Don I remember Eric said once that one of his mates could do a 7 + static yet in the water he could only dive to just over 20m with a questionable recovery.

I have found myself that my Statics are so much better than anything that invloves moving. I have generally believed that this was becasue in statics there is a level playing field so to speak no one can have an advatage with a better monofin, more streamlined wetsuit better goggles or whatever, in static there is no techniques or gear invovled that can give you an advantage over the man next to you it's simply ability.

With diving and dynamics people can learn better techniques, buy better equipment, develop complicated techniques such as Water equalizing and frc diving, fattah frenzel equalizing techniques. Also some can advatages as to where they live having 200ft visibilty, no currents, no swell, warm water can give an advantage to those who have to dive in 5C water with 10ft visibilty. With the statics you can't have these advantages or disadvantage's over someone else other than the water temp of the pool.

cheers

[efattah]

Luc Gosselin has done at least 7'48" in static and will be trying for the world record in a week -- his pb in cw is 40m with a samba...dynamic is something like 80m.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

[ivan]

hi

Eric who was the other guy you mentioned with the 7min + dry and a 21m constant weight with questionable recovery.

Also Luc planning to take down Misfud's 8:24 if so what number is he looking at

cheers

[Will]

Yorgos Haggi Statti could dive to 110m with (a primitive) variable weight, and stay at 30m for 7 minutes.
His dry static apnea? No more than 1 minute.

[Beaky]

My personal experience is that static depends less on you general fitness level than other disciplines.

A friend of mine is clearly better than me at static and I assume this is because he practise it while I don't.

I am clearly better than him at constant weight and I beleive this is mostly because I am more fit, doing more cardio training out of the water and therefore my body uses the available oxygen more efficiently.

Now I am nowhere near the world elite, and I assume that most top athletes will practise and be good at both, but if you focused entirely at one, you probably wouldn't be any good at the other.

Johnny

[derelictp]

I think static and the diving disciplines has a big relation.

I belive that static apnea shows a divers 'potential' in other disciplines as well.

Some beginners make fantastic statics but they can not dive deep or long; Thats mainly because they have a poor technique and their muscles are not trained for swimming with for ex. a monofin.

I have many examples of divers that shows this but I don't want to mention names.

If you take the beginner with good statics / poor diving and train him in the diving disciplines he will probably perform very good in the diving disciplines after some time.

[stevevidar]

I think the relation works both ways. Most people I have known or have heard about, who where good at diving, but not statics, didn’t practice statics and didn’t know the basic techniques or thought processes. If and when they did, their statics went up substantially.
Jody

[donmoore]

level playing field so to speak no one can have an advatage with a better monofin, more streamlined wetsuit better goggles or whatever

That brings up a funny memory. In the performance class, Martin said for his first world record in Free Immersion he was so poor he used the cheapest wet suit he could find, which was a Body Glove, a pair of homemade fluid goggles, and some $4 gloves from Home Depot. He said they thought about approaching Home Depot for a sponsorship.
don