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Apnea dry training regimes?

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 90 days.
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L

Libby

New Member
Jul 22, 2012
6
0
0
#1
Hi, I'm a beginner to freediving and would really appreciate some advice on my training regime.

I have a course booked for September in Dahab, and am doing pool and static training in preparation.

I'm doing tables daily - which I love. Once a week I have a training session at the gym where I'm doing apnea walks on the treadmill with a buddy supervising. For the apnea walks, I'm doing 15 hold / 30 ventilate / 30 hold / 60 ventilate etc etc until I max out.

My question is should I do to continue doing this on the treadmill, or would it be better to do tables on the treadmill? What would be most effective in increasing my ability?

I'm also getting a weird sensation sometimes on the apnea walks which is really unpleasant - like a hot rush through my body. I find relaxing is the best way to get past it, and my yoga practice has really helped on this, but just wondered if anyone knew what caused it?

thanks everyone, :)

Libby
 
#2
re: hot rush. I feel a hot flush in my face sometimes, usually when I start breathing after the first few holds of a set of dry apnea. In my case I am fairly certain it has to do with release of vasoconstriction. The sensation fades over the course of subsequent holds but the vasoconstriction does not (although the threshold may change). In the water I don't experience that particular sensation.
 
#3
Don't know if it's the same thing or not but I start getting VERY hot if I do dry holds, in the water I don't have this sensation either
 
#5
thanks for the advice Simos. I find the tables are really addictive, and I spend a lot of time commuting so it gives me something to do while I'm sat on a train.
 
#7
Libby said:
BTW - any idea why doing the tables daily is not recommended??
Click to expand...

Simos may know something I don't, and I have heard this advice before as well, but provided you are getting proper rest, nutrition, and not approaching mental burnout I don't see why you can't do them daily; plenty of people dive daily or for several days in a row and competitive freedivers certainly train more often than every other day?
 
#8
Broadly speaking, it's to allow sufficient time for your body to recover - training more often does not necessarily mean you will make more progress and it's easy to overtrain if you doing them every day + some real diving. It's the same principles as gym training etc, rest is as important as training. Especially if you are pushing hard...

If it's possible to 'mix things ups' it's better if you are training daily and not work on the same aspects (e.g. you can work on swimming technique one day, apnea on another and so on).

I don't think anyone, including top divers, can train apnea and push themselves in the same way every day. The more you advance, the less often you can push to the max - a top freediver for sure will need days to recover from a max attempt, I doubt anyone can do more than 1 or at most 2 max attempts a week..
 
#9
Im curious about this myself, How does doing a set of dry tables differ from a basic day of spearfishing. My watch today said i did over 60 dives. How are a few tables any different then that?
 
#10
Simos said:
Broadly speaking, it's to allow sufficient time for your body to recover - training more often does not necessarily mean you will make more progress and it's easy to overtrain if you doing them every day + some real diving. It's the same principles as gym training etc, rest is as important as training. Especially if you are pushing hard...

If it's possible to 'mix things ups' it's better if you are training daily and not work on the same aspects (e.g. you can work on swimming technique one day, apnea on another and so on).

I don't think anyone, including top divers, can train apnea and push themselves in the same way every day. The more you advance, the less often you can push to the max - a top freediver for sure will need days to recover from a max attempt, I doubt anyone can do more than 1 or at most 2 max attempts a week..
Click to expand...

I tend to agree--rest and training variety is incredibly important--but I find static tables are not as strenuous as diving/pool training/dynamic, etc. They can be mentally challenging but I don't take the same physical hit. Perhaps my tables (which I don't actually do a lot of) are not challenging enough :).
 
#11
kwtony said:
Im curious about this myself, How does doing a set of dry tables differ from a basic day of spearfishing. My watch today said i did over 60 dives. How are a few tables any different then that?
Click to expand...

I am no expert but I don't think the number by itself means much. To continue the gym analogy, you can do 60 easy reps of an exercise and do them every day no problem but if you do 3-4 heavy reps to failure you might need days to recover. In the same way one max DYN/STA attempt will need a lot more recovery that many easier dives.

CO2 / O2 tables are designed to load you with CO2 / deplete you of O2 so as far as I know, they do put stress on the body (depending on how challenging you make them).

Over time too, you need to be careful if you are training hard/often in apnea - it's not uncommon to end up with iron deficiency etc so if you are going to train hard and often, you need to also learn about nutrition and rest needed. I never trained very often or very hard so I am no the right person to advice...

Also personally I find that the mental aspect can also be affected if you push too often - you end up getting tired of pushing, stop enjoying apnea and associating breath holding with negative feelings. I had this happen only once at a period where I was super tired, stressed and over-did it a bit with apnea and I vividly remember a training session where I was down and literally couldn't even hold my breath for 25m!
 
#12
Simos said:
Also personally I find that the mental aspect can also be affected if you push too often - you end up getting tired of pushing, stop enjoying apnea and associating breath holding with negative feelings. I had this happen only once at a period where I was super tired, stressed and over-did it a bit with apnea and I vividly remember a training session where I was down and literally couldn't even hold my breath for 25m!
Click to expand...

Yes, been there. Poor sleep for a week, plus air travel, plus stress from work, and the apnea is impossible...
 
#15
Libby said:
That sucks. Are you back training again now?
Click to expand...

No not yet but hopefully from end of September - can't wait!!! :-)

Will be a bit funny going back, most of the people I was diving with (especially those who started freediving more recently) have made amazing progress in the last year whereas I'm back to square one - oh well, their turn to teach me haha

If you find yourself in London drop me a PM and come train with us :martial
 
#16
It sounds like you are training very well. Im very knew to this but my advice is to make sure you actually dive as much as possible. I feel like my best dives are directly related to my diving...if that makes sense. I havent done any tables for many months now.
 
#17
Simos said:
No not yet but hopefully from end of September - can't wait!!! :-)

Will be a bit funny going back, most of the people I was diving with (especially those who started freediving more recently) have made amazing progress in the last year whereas I'm back to square one - oh well, their turn to teach me haha

If you find yourself in London drop me a PM and come train with us :martial
Click to expand...

I'm sure you'll find you'll move forward super-quickly though. Thanks for the invite too! L
 
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