SWB: Reducing the Risk

[Fondueset]

At best you can only do a couple of dives when it is really cold. Here - even in the summer - we have very cold thermalclines. It is interesting to go from water in the 70sF down to the upper 40s - then back up again.

Is there any reason to believe the Dive Response can be 'over-trained' to where it becomes desensitized to some degree?

[amihov]

If you are diving on bear skin and difference in water temperature is very big you can lose control during a dive . You can get to the point that you cant swim from the shock of the cold water. It has happen to me many times in Bulgaria. I am born and raise there. In the black sea you can be swimming in 25 degrees C on the surface 3 meters below the water can be 10 C.

[Fondueset]

Similar to what we have here. We often have stratified thermalclines - so it might be 20c at the surface, 10C at 5 meters - then 8C at 10 meters. My daughter jumped in wearing her bikini off a breakwall the other day at the water was 3C! She had to swim to get to the ladder - of course mostly on the surface. I've never been unable to swim due to the cold hit - but I prefer to use a suit for the reasons allready mentioned. I see no reason to practice getting that cold. I know Eric Fattah and Laminar have done quite a bit of cold water diving without suits though.

[amihov]

Well different people can do different things but i know from my experience it is not very healthy. Since i moved to Canada i have never been in the water whit out a wet suite. Plus the best place where you can dive hear required a wet suite at all times. Usually in a place where the water is clear there is a strong current bringing clod water deep from the ocean. And the water temperature never goes above 10 c.

[cdavis]

Overtrain the DR? Something I've wondered about. I do a few negatives at the beginning of every workout. When I started, I would get some extreme tingling in the hands and feet(30 second or less dives) It felt very much like a strong DR. If I did a dynamic immediatelly after, I could go very far, but with very much lactic acid burn in the legs. Now I don't get the tingles or as much lactic acid burn and can't go as far on the first dynamic. It is as if the negatives no longer kick in the DR nearly as well. Desensitized?

Connor

[sebastien murat]

yes you can desensitize

Seb

[Mullins]

Bugger....

[sebastien murat]

The trick is to introduce variety to your training all the while maintaining specificity and intensity, e.g. start at the other end of the pool, less prep time, swim width then length.

Seb

[shoutatthesky]

Specificity, specificity, specificity

Motivation, motivation, motivation

Safety, safety, safety

But some of you guys are suggesting:
cross-training because you can't get motivated to go the distance and because your approach is, relatively speaking, unsafe.

I can't buy into this.

You make it sound like rocket-science: CO2 tables, pyramid sets, bla, bla, bla. No wonder you can't find the optimal recipe.

Sebastien, I find your approach fascinating. With so many conflicting ideas out there it is hard to know who to listen to.
With my limited experience of putting some of your ideas into practice and coming up with some beneficial results, I believe your ideas are valid. In all your posts you speak with such conviction and passion about your ideas but I think there is much we all need to digest in order to understand your ideas more comprehensively.
I don't understand how CO2 tables or any form of cross training would interfere with our individual DR susceptability. Surely any apnea based activity is enhanced by good general fitness?

[sebastien murat]

When I was younger...many moons ago now, and doing track and field, I wondered what the optimal training program might look like if one wanted to maximize the rate of improvement in certain, purely physical parameters. Athletics is a fairly well explored sport science an dthere's a serious lot of stuff out there. I read all the english stuff. Had the German and Russian works translated. One thing was clear, there were as many opinions out there as there were coaches. But one thing was clear the guys on teh other side of the iron curtain were doing it different. They were using a high intensity specific training regime (government sponsored doping aside of course). The best of the lot, were essentially simultaing the very thing they were aiming to perform in, all but in bite size pieces. Swimming was the same. I tried their programs and the results were nothing but short of impressive. Not suprisingly sport science research corroborates this.

Anyway, any general form of fitess training will improve your breath-holding ability; some to a greater extent and faster than others. I have no interest in such wishy-washy recipes. I'm only concerned with maximizing performance to suit various specifc apnea activities; apnea is not simply apnea.

I intimately understand the idea promoted by Eric et al, and there are some real advantages, but limitations also, especially on muscular and nervous systems, which respond in very specific ways to training. In this respect, the dive response (% relative decrease in heart rate and vasoconstriction) and anaerobic metabolism, is what I'm referring to. For me freediving is still in its infancy, therefore, it is no surprise that people like Herbert are doing well. Indeed, you could achieve even better results by doing 'apnea cross-country skiing' rather than apnea bike, but that still wouldn't be the optimal training strategy.

We could argue the relative merits of each training strategy, but it would take more than a post on this thread to get the point across, and unfortunately I have not the time these days. Back to work for me!


Seb

[Kars]

Great tread, cool info - at times literally, keep it up, I'm all ears!

Love, peace and water!

Kars

[amihov]

It all comes done to practice. The same way as a race drivers they do all kinds of exercieses but the most important is drving it self. You can't become a good free diver if you don't free dive.

[Fondueset]

I appreciate the focus and scientific rigor in Sebastien's work. It is highly distilled and specialized information and of great use even to those of us who only want a safe and enjoyable dive.

[jome]

That was sort of my point.

Doing a full "packed until bursting", traditional dynamic apnea for instance with a suit on etc...It's basically doing apnea cycling but in water. That's why such training works.

Anyway...what do I know...

[sebastien murat]

Don't worry, I know even less:

The first time I tried holding my breath, after a long stint in athletics, it took me 4 days to surpass Pelizzari's (7'02") record sitting at around at home. I went 7'17" and started at 6'40". I was really impressed with myself. Looking back I was a real tripper though, I didn't know the first thing about freediving. Three months later I got it up just over 8 minutes. And, I still didn't know a damn thing. Mind you, I was coming from a background in sprints, not endurance. Years later, I though I knew, but actually still didn't (delusional phase)

When I eventually figured it all out, just the other day (I think?), the pieces of the jig-saw fell together beautifully. It was so obvious, how could I have missed it? It was so simple in design, yet I looked hither and thither for solutions to problems that were essentially non-existant. Now, I'm too old. Oh well, how sad, too bad for me!

You write that dynamics are "...basically doing apnea cycling but in water".. My answer: Yes and no. Why?
During dynamics HR is lower because of the water. Even when you sprint at the end of a dynamic HR deos not normally rise. On the other hand, do a sprint at the end of apnea bike and see what happens. One trains the dive response better than the other. You need water! You need the cooling effect of water, even better when it flows. (Hint: Statics with water flowing over the face)

Seb